
Class Il_: 

Book___ 






Copyiight^N . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE SCIENTIFIC 
DEMONSTRATION 



OF THE 



Soul's Existence and Immortality. 



Part I. Physical Basis of the Soul. 



By 

HENRY FRANK. 



New York : 

THE ALLIANCE PUBLISHING CO., 

Windsor Arcade, 

569 Fifth Avenue, 

1903. 



NGRESS 
Two Copies deceived 

DlC 31 i904 

y» Copyngut tntry 
USS £JU XXc No; 
COPY B, 



■bTI 2 -! 

F<5 



COPYRIGHT 

1903 

By HENRY FRANK 



FORE-NOTE. 

This little treatise on Immortality had its origin 
in a series of lectures I delivered to my congrega- 
tion some years ago. The substance of several dis- 
courses was combined in one treatise and the argu- 
ment presented in as terse and compact a form as 
I could prepare. The first edition having been ex- 
hausted, although it was originally issued to be sold 
only privately to my hearers, I have utilized the 
opportunity a second edition affords of correcting 
some statements which apparently conflicted with 
the latest scientific conclusions. 

It seemed to some of my readers that I accepted 
the antiquated idea of the actual existence of a 
Vital Force as an entity in nature, and that my 
argument for Immortality was false because I rested 
it on that conception. 

I have so altered my definition of the soul as to 
remove this objection, [pp. 19 and 20.] 

In the Appendix I have presented, exclusively 
in this edition, an array of scientific authorities 
which I think corroborate the conclusions to which 
I have arrived in this treatise. 

I am gratified to note that some of the leading 



thinkers of the nation who have especially studied 
this problem have congratulated me on the novelty 
and force of the argument I have invented. 

In the second Appendix I have introduced what 
some will perhaps regard as a scientific curiosity 
rather than a scientific possibility, namely, an argu- 
ment showing how the image of the soul as well as 
our thoughts may be seized by the photographic 
camera. I throw out this suggestion to the scien- 
tific world merely to stimulate thought and not as 
a dogmatic assertion. Henry Frank. 

New York City, December, 1902. 



THE SCIENTIFIC DEMONSTRATION OF THE SOUL'S 
EXISTENCE AND IMMORTALITY. 



BY HENRY FRANK. 



PART I.— "The Physical Basis of the Soul/' 

From time immemorial men have pondered : Hath 
man a soul ? If so, of what is it made, whence hath it 
come, and whither shall it go? Shall it live after the 
body, or shall it dissolve, at last, like this "muddy 
vesture of decay," and be no more? The answer has 
always been the echo of man's wish. 

Has his life here been one of peace and pleasure, 
he has viewed elsewhere his soul's fruition and eternal 
joy. Has he been doomed to penury and want; has 
haggard woe trodden deep furrows in his waxen face ; 
then looks he askance at other worlds where fate sits 
grim and gruesome and offers naught but tears and 
sweat of blood and racking pain. He who sought in 
Nature's countenance to read the riddle, has departed 
silent and unsated. Behind the solemn clouds the 
sinking sun of life had set forever. No returning dawn 
heralded his restoration. He had gone. Within the 
curtain of eternal night he lay forever folded. 



Therefore men ignorantly sought wisdom from 
those who dreamed and prophesied, who found their 
God in secret caves, and learned from him the mystery 
of being. Prelate and poet, student and philosopher 
alike worshipped at the shrine of ignorance, beseech- 
ing Truth for knowledge and consolation. 

But we, who to-day traverse the course which 
mankind have for ages pursued, behold them clamber* 
ing the rugged mountain sides, whose jutting rocks 
pierce and lacerate their weary bodies, ever wistfully 
scanning the heights for Truth's revealment, and fair 
Hope's return. ? For ages men have despaired to look 
beyond the grave. At last despair grew into indiffer- 
ence, and men Scared not whether life continued or no. 

Speculation then assumed a pessimistic turn, and 
men began to ask : Why should we live ? Is not this 
life sufficiently surfeited with woe to pull the veil of 
delusion from our eyes? Who is happy? No one. 
Who does not sense "the respect that makes calamity 
of so long life ?" Aye ! each of us. 

"For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, 
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, 
To grunt and sweat under a weary life," 

forever and forever ? 

Thus have men reasoned themselves against even 
the hope of immortality. To escape the confusion and 
perplexity of the problem, they argue why is not this 
hope and dream of an after life but a misplaced antici- 
pation of that paradise which shall some time prevail 
here upon this planet ? 

6 



Some have dreamed of a social and perennial par- 
adise, as man's future earthly estate, and disappointed 
in its realization, they have cast the vision of its fulfil- 
ment beyond the skies. There the riddle will be read; 
there will they enjoy such delights as the heart con- 
ceives but this earth cannot engender. Others argued 
that this has been a foolish and weak surrender. What 
men have for all time been dreaming of, shall yet be 
attained on this planet, and that which in despair they 
cast beyond the skies, shall sometime become the visi- 
tant and ruler of this sphere. 

They insist, the immortality to be sought after is 
the immortality of individual character and the triumph 
of collective justice. Individual immortality, they say, 
is the outgrowth of egotism and selfishness. The high- 
est sacrifice is the resignation to oblivion after a career 
of goodness and integrity has been achieved. 

But why must the hope of an earthly paradise, 
peopled with children of light and love, truthfulness 
and peace, neutralize the hope of an eternal paradise 
in which each of us may participate ? If as a race we 
shall yet achieve such glorious ends, then why not 
encourage the hope that each of us individual factors, 
who in our time has "pushed on the car of progress/' 
shall yet wear the crown in other worlds which they 
here shall sometime wear whom we have helped to win. 
If the race as a whole in the future shall inherit the 
fruits of our efforts why should not we whq have 
fought and died live again to win and rejoi&s£ I 

I admit that it is man's egotism that prompts' this 
desire for eternal life. But I also recall that man's 

7 



egotism and self-consciousness are the product of Na- 
ture's evolutionary process. Man is more egotistic 
than the animal because he is more self-conscious ; and 
were he not thus self-conscious he would not be man, 
but still an animal. The bird is more self-conscious 
than the bough on which it poises, and is, therefore, 
the bird and not the bough. Self-consciousness is the 
basis of egotism, and egotism is the substratum of in- 
dividuality. Having found one's self, it is but natural 
to desire to possess one's self forever. The bird is hap- 
pier than the bough, and, therefore, loves itself better 
than the bough. Man loves himself better than aught 
else in the world, and he would not be man if he did 
not. 

The cultivation of such egotism is not vicious. 
It becomes so only when it is transformed into impure 
gratification and brutal selfishness. The desire to per- 
petuate that individuality which we have learned to 
love because of its aspirations, aims and capabilities, is 
no more to be condemned than the desire to live for- 
ever in the presence of beauty, or forever to be trans- 
ported with the chords of melody. Nature has 
achieved in man her highest degree of intelligence, con- 
sciousness and capacity. Why should not he, in whom 
Nature has registered this highest achievement, desire 
to follow the unfoldment within his own consciousness, 
throughout the whole compass of her possibilities ? 

The desire to live forever is but the product of 
self-consciousness. The two are complementary. 
They cannot exist apart. The very fact that the self- 
consciousness exists proves the desire. The fact that 

8 



the desire exists, prophecies the continued self-con- 
sciousness. 

Some have sought the solution of the problem in 
the assumption that the soul, as a living entity, only 
temporarily inhabits this frame but lives apart from 
it, and so soon as this tenement dissolves immediately 
enters and inhabits another prepared for it. In this 
view the soul is a cosmic traveller, flying from pole to 
pole and realm to realm, seeking everywhere its fitting 
abode, and ill-contented until its affinity is found. Nor 
shall it ever be found in the transitory realms of time. 
Its final peace but comes when it ceases to body forth 
in matter and sinks into the unindividuated source from 
which it originally came. 

"Our birth is but a sleeping and a forgetting: 
The soul that riseth with us, our life's star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
And cometh from afar: 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 
Nor in utter nakedness, 
But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
From God who is our home." 

It is evident, however, that all these speculations 
are the outcome of man's definition and understanding 
of the soul itself. His view of the soul's future will 
vary with his apprehension of its nature. 

If he contemplates it as an entity within and sepa- 
rate from the body, uncommingled with it as oil from 
water, then he will study it as an exotic, and necessa- 
rily be ignorant of its nature, laws and history. This 
is the view that mankind commonly hold concerning 

9 



the soul. If most people will try to picture the soul, it 
will appear to them somewhat in the simile of a kernel 
within the shell. It is related to the shell yet apart 
from it. It is essentially the nut, which cannot exist 
without it. The kernel and the shell must co-exist or 
there can be no nut. 

So must men regard the soul. It is within and 
apart from the body. The body could not exist with- 
out it. 

But, here, the two schools of thought separate. 
The one says that the soul which is essentially the 
body, must expire when the body expires. The other 
says that the soul is necessary to the body, but is in- 
dependent from it and can live when the body dissolves, 
as the kernel lives after the shell is crushed. 

So long as the soul is regarded as an entity sepa- 
rated from all else in the world, it will be impossible 
scientifically or philosophically to postulate anything 
of its history or its laws. The universe is a unit, and 
all its phenomena must be accepted as the product of 
its unitary and harmonious forces. We shall be able 
to understand the nature of the invisible soul only by 
understanding the nature of the visible body. Only 
when we fully understand the body shall we be able 
to understand the soul. It is because we have so long 
misunderstood the body that we have been so long 
ignorant of the soul. 

It is my effort in this discourse to set forth the 
essential nature of the body so that I may be able to 
establish what I call the physical basis of the soul. 

Because men held that the soul was something 
10 



extraneous to the body, and maintained only a resi- 
dential relation to it, it has been the fruitless effort of 
all thinkers to locate and limit the soul somewhere 
within the body. At one time the heart was believed to 
be the home of the soul. Others regarded the breath, 
and, therefore, the lungs as the temporary abode. It 
remained for Rene Descartes to discover the most curi- 
ous location for this heavenly visitor which has yet 
been suggested. 

His theory of the vortices and the mechanical 
structure of the universe was leading him rapidly into 
sheer materialism. He so described man and animals 
that they could be compared only with automata, and 
be considered but machines. In order to escape the 
bald materialism of this conclusion he denies the exist- 
ence of the graduating vegetative and sensitive souls, 
among the inferior creations, which the Aristotelians 
proclaimed, and insists that "only one soul, the ra- 
tional, remains, and that is restricted to man. Reason 
and thought do not belong to brutes; there is an im- 
passable gulf fixed between man and the lower ani- 
mals/' Having involved himself so deeply in contra- 
dictions and confusion, Descartes proceeds to march 
into deeper jungles by striving to differentiate the soul 
itself as apart from the body. "Whilst all organic 
processes in man go on mechanically, still the first 
affirmation of his system was that man was a thinking 
being. The mind, therefore, is not to be regarded as 
a mere spectator, like a boatman in a boat. Of course 
a unity between mind and body is impossible, as de- 
scribed. And yet there is unity of composition, really 

11 



One, and, in a sense, indivisible. There is one point 
in the human brain, however, midway, single and 
free, which may in a special way be called the seat of 
the brain. This is the so-called conarion, or pineal 
gland, where in a minimized point the mind, on the 
one hand, and the animal spirits, on the other, meet 
and communicate." [See Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 
Art. "Descartes."] 

This is the curious and almost ludicrous method 
Descartes, one of the world's profoundest philosophers, 
adopts to free himself from the insinuation of material- 
istic and atheistic associations. 

What wonder the clear and logical mind of Bene- 
dict De Spinoza revolted from the apparent insincerity 
of the Frenchman and thus rebukes him, with almost 
discourteous severity: 

"Such, in so far as I can understand him, is the 
opinion of this distinguished philosopher; and I must 
confess that had it been less recondite, less ingenious, 
I should scarcely have expected anything of the kind 
from him. I cannot, indeed, sufficiently express my 
wonder that a philosopher who lays it down broadly 
that nothing is to be inferred save from self-evident 
propositions, and nothing to be affirmed save that 
which is clearly and distinctly apprehended, who so 
frequently accuses the schoolmen with attempting to 
explain things obscure by occult qualities — that he, I 
say, should assume an hypothesis more obscure than 
any the most occult quality." ["Life, Correspond- 
ence and Ethics." Willis, p. 622.] 

All this is, of course, quite amusing to a modern 
12 



student. It shows us how even the wisest of earth's 
scholars will seize upon something obscure to reinforce 
an untenable hypothesis. Anthropologists now know 
that the pineal gland is a rudimentary eye, and has no 
more right to claim to be the residence of so divine a 
visitor as the soul than have the ruder members of the 
hand or the foot. 

Again I say that all this age-long confusion has 
grown out of the conception that the universe was a 
divisible and separable composition, and that indi- 
vidual natures were independent and foreign from 
others. 

I proceed, then, to undertake to demonstrate the 
proposition that as all Nature is a unit, and as what- 
ever is in Nature is akin and related to all things else, 
therefore the mind or soul is so related to the body 
that instead of being separate and distinct from it, it is 
inwoven and intermingled therewith; it commingles 
with every fibre and tissue, every organ and member. 
The soul is coterminous with the body, and is a per- 
sonal soul only so long as it retains this coterminous 
relation. [See Appendix.] 

This proposition may seem somewhat startling, 
but as it is scientifically demonstrable, I believe it will 
be accepted as a correct postulate. 

In order to understand this proposition we must 
first distinguish between soul and mere vitality or liv- 
ing activity. Dr. Lionel S. Beale, the distinguished 
microscopist, has perhaps accomplished more than any 
other investigator, in assisting us to draw this differ- 
ence. It is commonly supposed that living matter 

13 



pervades the entire human organism. We usually 
think of ourselves as entirely alive; of the tree, or 
plant, or animal, as living in every fibre and tissue of 
its body. In the strict definition of the term life, ac- 
cording to Beale's discoveries, this apprehension seems 
to be incorrect. 

He says "Nothing that lives is alive in every part. 
Of the matter which constitutes the bodies of man and 
animals in the fully formed condition probably more 
than four-fifths are in the formed or not-living state." 
["Protoplasm," p. 187.] [See Appendix.] 

But we must understand what distinction he makes 
between living and not-living matter in order to appre- 
ciate the above statement. In order to make the dis- 
tinction most clear he uses the term bioplasm (Greek: 
bios, life, and plasm, form) in contradistinction to the 
term protoplasm. He says : "Inanimate, albuminous 
matter, which is incapable of any movement whatever, 
has been looked upon as protoplasm. Living things 
have been spoken of as protoplasm; the same things 
dead have been said to be protoplasm. If the matter 
of an animal be boiled or roasted, it does not thereby 
lose its title to be called protoplasm." 

This, Beale denominates protoplasm, because it is 
already formed and does not perform the office of 
seizing and transforming foreign matter into a living, 
active substance. 

"In my lectures in 1861 I had drawn attention 
to the great distinction between living' and 'formed 
matter' of the elementary part of cell, and of all living 
organisms ; and had shown that the living matter' of 

u 



a cell corresponded to the material of which the amoeba, 
white-corpuscle, etc., were composed. These last I 
represented as a naked mass of living matter, and 
objected to apply to them the term protoplasm, because 
so many textures which were not living were said to 
consist of that substance." [Beale.] 

To him, then, bioplasrsa, the living matter, is 
something totally different from protoplasm, the 
formed or not-living matter. According to this con- 
struction, the greatest portion of the human system is 
more dead than alive. That is, the formed or unassimi- 
lating substance, constituting the greater portion of the 
body, is constantly in a state of decay ; whereas the un- 
formed, or ceaselessly active and assimilating part, con- 
stitutes only a slight portion. Living, to Beale, means 
the capacity of the substance to reach out to not-living 
matter and transmute it into living matter. "Bioplasm 
always tends to move towards the pabulum it is about 
to take up and to transform. This tendency to move 
is one of the essential attributes of living matter." 
Bioplasm is the substance that has this tendency to 
move and take up and absorb the pabulum (food) or 
not-living matter. The pabulum or not-living matter 
is (in Beale's terminology) protoplasm. 

Some may here object to the use of the term dead, 
or not-living, matter. In one sense of the word there 
is nothing dead in all nature. All the universe is alive 
and is constantly presenting phenomenal phases of 
life-transformations. Death is not ultimate dissolution, 
or annihilation, of which nature knows nothing. It is 
but temporary disintegration, preparing for renewed 

15 



and more complex integrations. But Beale makes no 
reference to this popular use of the word "dead." He 
means by "living" matter that which has the power 
to absorb and transform other matter which does not 
have this power. 

Now all bioplasm or living matter is easily distin- 
guishable from protoplasm, or not-living matter. But 
all bioplasm, every form of living matter, is indistin- 
guishable. "Neither the most careful microscopical 
observation nor the most skilful chemical analysis 
would enable us to distinguish the living matter ob- 
tained from the body of an ape from that taken from a 
man, dog, fish, or human form of life."* 

Remember it is one of the world's greatest chem- 
ists who is speaking; not an idle speculator. There 
is then no chemical difference between all the varieties 
of original living matter, although it forms the basis of 
so many different forms of life. "But who would, 
therefore, affirm that all these different forms of living 
matter are one, and identical? Although there may 
be no [known] physical or chemical differences, we 
know that the life history of these several forms is very 
different, while the results of their living are sufficient 
to prove that they must have been diverse from the very 
first." [Beale.] 

*"It is proved that no germ, animal or vegetable, con- 
tains the slightest rudiment, trace, or indication of the 
future organizatism — since the microscope, has shown thrt 
the first process set up in every fertilized germ, is a pro- 
cess of repeated spontaneous fissure, ending in the pro- 
duction of a mass of cells, not one of which exhibits any 
special character." — Herbert Spencer. 



In short, here is a scientific demonstation that 
the primal living matter, from which the multifarious 
forms of earth-life develop, is originally one and the 
same, apparently, in physical and chemical quality, 
but must necessarily be inherently although undiscov- 
erably different in its very essence, 

"The formed material may be regarded as a pro- 
duct resulting from the collision of the internal vital 
and external physical forces." [Beale's "How to Use 
the Microscope/' p. 283.] 

Now, Beale further shows us that these original 
bodies of bioplasm are minute, structureless, trans- 
parent, semi-fluid substances. "There is a period 
in the development of every tissue, and every living 
thing known to us, when there are actually no struc- 
tural peculiarities whatever, when the whole organism 
consists of transparent, structureless, semi-fluid, living 
bioplasm." [See Appendix.] 

The picture that is here presented is that of a 
mass of fluid-like, spherically-formed, structureless 
and transparent organisms, floating throughout the 
entire region of the body, and covering the minutest 
sections of it. For he further informs us that there 
"is not one portion of a growing tissue, one five-hun- 
dredth of an inch in extent, in which living matter 
cannot be demonstrated ; and in every part of the body 
are these little masses of living matter, separated from 
one another by a distance little more than the thou- 
sandth part of an inch." [See Appendix.] 

If it is asked how these semi-fluid, transparent, 



17 



and therefore invisible bioplasts are discovered un- 
der the microscope, he explains by telling us that 
"all bioplasm is colored red by an ammonial solu- 
tion of carmine, while all formed material (proto- 
plasm) remains colorless." 

That is, the colorless and invisible bioplasts 
can be brought into view under the microscope by 
applying a solution of ammonia and carmine, and 
can thus be shown to be actual material or physical 
substances, although they seem to be wholly free 
and independent from all known physical laws and 
forces. 

Again, we learn that these living bioplasts have 
the power of instantly and in the twinkling of an 
eye transmuting lifeless matter into active, living 
substance. [See Appendix.] 

Here we confront the most marvellous and start- 
ling fact in Nature, which still remains the speech- 
less sphinx of science, refusing to open its silent 
lips and reveal the working of the miracle. 

Out of this " invisible microscopical world, comes 
the voice of science to reveal to mankind the very 
nature, quality and possibility of their immortal souls. 

For now we have the picture drawn for us by 
science of an indwelling, perfectly outlined, trans- 
parent, colorless and invisible body, of which we are 
at no time conscious, yet which exists as the 
exact, invisible counterpart of our consciously visi- 
ble bodies. 

We must remember that there is not a tissue, 
so much as the five-hundredth part of an inch in ex- 

18 



tent, but that it will reveal a living bioplasm. And 
we must also remember that throughout the combined 
and organized tissues of our bodies these infinitesimal 
living substances prevail, separated from each other 
by not more than the thousandth part of an inch. 
Therefore they follow the exact outline and configura- 
tion of our coarser physical frames. But these minute 
spherical substances (bioplasts) are colorless, trans- 
parent and invisible. Therefore it is clear as the day- 
light that there exists within each of us an invisible and 
transparent body, and precise facsimile of our opaque, 
physical bodies, which constitutes the only living body 
we possess, and from which the outer and non-living 
body proceeds. 

Here, it seems to me, we have discovered the 
true and scientifically demonstrable home or resi- 
dence of the soul. It pervades every part of the 
body, for it is the unknown and vital force that 
generates and sustains the bioplasts which exist in 
every minutest portion of the body and constitute 
the essence and vitality of all its tissues. [See Ap- 
pendix, first note.] 

In the generation of each bioplast (the viscid, 
semi-fluid, colorless, transparent particle of life- 
matter) we discern the presence and activity of the 
soul. [See Appendix, second note.] 

• The soul is that universal force which transmutes 
diffuse ether into visible form, and evolves the lowest 
stages of matter into the most complex organisms, 
manifesting in these living organisms its supreme po- 
tency of transforming so-called dead matter into living 

19 



matter; that is of manifesting itself in a special mode 
of motion known as vitality or the vital force. 

Each infinitesimal bioplast is every moment of our 
existence achieving this matchless miracle. It is con- 
stantly absorbing dead matter and instantaneously 
transforming it into living matter by a process at pres- 
ent utterly incomprehensible to man. 

It is changing visible, opaque, chemically defined 
and organized matter in an instant into transparent, 
invisible, structureless matter, whose chemical nature 
is wholly unknown. Every moment of each living 
creature evidences the marvellous workings of this 
undefined activity in Nature; an activity which sets 
at nought all the preconceived principles of alleged 
materialism, or the mechanical theory of Nature's con- 
struction. The human soul, then, it would appear, 
resides in these invisible bioplasts; for within these 
microscopic bodies, which exist by the countless mill- 
ions in every living body, the soul operates and exer- 
cises its mysterious powers. Again I must emphasize 
the fact that these infinitesimal bioplasts are spread 
throughout every minutest section of the living tissues 
which constitute the body of man or other living things. 
[See Appendix.] 

Hence the human soul resides throughout the 
human body, actuating all its powers and faculties, 
its chemical transformations and its physical char- 
acteristics. 

But now 7 I ask of this "force" that resides in 
the bioplasts and operates through all the being of 
man, which we call the soul, Is it sui generis to 

20 



man? Does he, alone, of all living creatures pos- 
sess it? 

Manifestly not. If the bioplast — that infinites- 
imal bit of matter — is the abode of the spiritual 
force we call the soul, then, insomuch as the power 
that produces must exist before the thing which is 
produced, the soul or the spiritual energy must exist 
in Nature before the bioplast which it generates 
and controls. 

All living things, whether tree or fish or in- 
sect, are similarly constructed from these bioplasts. 
But in addition we are scientifically assured that 
the bioplast of the tree, or the fish, or the bird, is 
precisely the same as the bioplast of the human 
body. In short, the living substance we call bioplasm 
is a direct natural product of the ever-existing spirit- 
ual energy we call soul. It is the primitive and ap- 
parently the ultimate form of life. For it is struc 
tureless and indivisible. It is the life-unit beyond 
which the knowledge of man seems unable to pene- 
trate. It is, therefore, the dwelling place of the 
world-soul as well as of the human soul. For the in- 
definable, universal, vital force in Nature is one and 
the same, wherever it appears, whether in mineral, in 
plant, in bird, in insect, or in man! 

Therefore, as it must sometime in Nature have 
-first appeared, transmuting composite and lifeless 
matter into structureless and vital matter, it must 
have always existed in the wide universe as spiritual, 
cosmic and omnipresent energy, seeking to mani- 
fest itself in material form. 

21 



This cosmic energy, this Universal Soul, then, 
exists as well in inanimate as in animate substances, 
in the sunbeam or the drop of rain; in the seed- 
less soil or the budding bough; in the winged crea- 
ture o the air or in the throbbing heart of man. 

It pervades all things, transmuting them from 
lifeless and undeveloped substance into living and 
organic forms ; from the stationary rock to the far- 
branching oak; from the sinuous slimy reptile to 
majestic man. 

"It sleeps in the rock; dreams in the animal; 
and awakes in man." [See Appendix.] 

Manifestly such a Power, existing before all 
manifest material forms of life, and itself the cause 
of such life, and pervading the universe, has unbounded 
possibilities. Having from lifeless substance formed 
the vital, invisible, howbeit, physical, figure of man 
(which exists unseen within the outer man, of 
which only are we conscious), how can we prove it 
to be incapable, after the dissolution of this visible 
frame, of moulding anew this invisible substance 
for higher uses in finer and more sublimated spheres? 

Remember that bioplasm is structureless, and 
therefore unsusceptible of chemical analysis; hence 
it is undefined and inexplicable. What becomes of 
it at death we do not know. It is invisible, trans- 
parent, structureless. It abides with the physical body 
while it is required to construct and develop that body. 
But when that body ceases to develop and decays, 
it has no further use for the bioplastic or vitalizing 



22 



body. Hence that invisible body ceases to remain 
with it. 

But as it is structureless and uncomposed of 
separable substances, and as its vitalizing energy 
does not have its source in the decaying body but 
within itself, it is neither logical nor reasonable to 
assume that it dissolves with the outer body. [See Ap- 
pendix.] 

Scientifically we are forced to conclude that it per- 
sists in activity and constructive potency, but its ap- 
pearance is, naturally, invisible to the normal eye. 

But if it continues to exist after the outer body 
dies, why can it not still be detected by the microscope 
as it could be while inhabiting the visible body ? 

The answer is first, because it cannot be localized 
— the surrounding, physical body, against which it 
could be discerned under the microscope, is now want- 
ing; and second, if it could be detected and subjected 
to the microscope (were such a thing possible) it could 
not reveal to the eye till the coloring chemical were 
applied to it ; which in the nature of things is at present 
impossible.* 

*I desire here to introduce a warning note. Insomuch 
as this is the first popular exposition of the physical al- 
though invisible abode of the human soul, within my 
knowledge, I doubt not that should this discourse fall 
within the observation of some spiritualistic trickster, he 
would immediately advertise that he can reveal the here- 
tofore invisible human soul by the application of a chemi- 
cal coloring. No doubt should he do so he would be able 
to muster a multitude of gullible fools into his seances. 
It is scarcely necessary to say that such scientific pre- 

23 



It appears to me to be a strictly scientific deduc- 
tion to assert that the bioplastic or invisible physical 
body, which dwells within the organic visible body, and 
is its exact fac-simile, is the home of the soul, while it 
resides in this mortal frame. That whenever this 
frame dissolves, the invisible, structureless body of 
bioplasms (which alone is the life-body and is incapa- 
ble of dissolution), continues to exist, albeit unseen by 
the human eye, and without affecting the body with 
which it was once so intimately connected. 

Now, whether this invisible abode of the soul 
shall continue to exist as a constant factor in the uni- 
verse, taking to itself some other visible counterpart, 
and once again mingling in the affairs of men, is, of 
course, a speculation that falls without the plane of 
the present discourse. 

It would, however, seem to be common sense that 
this invisible body which the bioplasts have built up 
through the operation of the vital energy, would con- 
tinue to exist as an individuality so long as the energy 
that held them together, while they inhabited the 
body, were sufficiently strong to maintain that associ- 
ation. But if the persistent, unifying energy were not 
sufficiently strong to hold together these countless mill- 
ions of invisible substances, then they would separate 
into the primal source from which they emanated, and 
seek future and different associations. 

The self-consciousness of man, which is physi- 

tentiousness would not only be ludicrous but criminal, and 
that people who would seriously attend such expositions 
would deserve to be classed as insane. 

24 



cally expressed alone in the grey matter of the nervous 
system (which constitutes the body of the bioplasts), 
must continue to exist so long as that invisible bio- 
plastic body continues to exist. If the personal force 
of the individual is sufficiently developed to hold to- 
gether the co-operative association of these myriad 
bioplasts, he continues on as a personal, conscious 
entity, through limitless epochs beyond. 

If his self-conscious, self-centered, individuated 
(that is indivisible) personality is not thus sufficiently 
evolved, then these infinitesimal spheres of bioplasm 
disunite, and cease to respond to his conscious ac- 
tivities. [See Appendix.] 

From this it might appear that continuous future 
existence cannot be logically postulated of all the 
humankind, but only of those who are sufficiently 
evolved above the lower consciousness of animal 
activity to maintain a self-sustaining individuality. 

While this is merely speculative it is at least 
founded on strictly scientific facts and appeals to 
common sense. 

While, then, the data of science may not at pres- 
ent permit us to penetrate into the future history of 
the human soul beyond the grave, they certainly afford 
us an assurance of such existence, and thus accord 
with the universal instinct and desire of the race. 

When the argument presented in this discourse 
for the physical basis of the soul's existence is coupled 
with another which rests on the proof of the existence 
of the unconscious or subliminal self, it affords, I be- 
lieve, an incontestible and scientific demonstration 



which must appeal to the reason and common sense of 
all men. In Part II. I present the complementary ar- 
gument on the Unconscious Self, which to my mind 
so effectually reinforces the argument herein presented 
as to be incontrovertible. 

In order that the reader may hold the argument 
conclusively and clearly in the mind, I close with a 
series of syllogistic propositions, in recapitulation of 
the above. 

ist. The human soul cannot be located in any 
one part of the body, such as the breast, the heart, the 
brain or the pineal gland. The soul exists through- 
out the entire physical body and is coterminous there- 
with. The soul is the correlation of all the forces that 
operate in the maintenance of living organisms. 

2d. The soul, or psychic activity, is to be contra- 
distinguished from the living, or vital, activity of the 
physical organism. It is the power within the living 
organism that operates and directs it. 

3d. The human body consists of what is known 
as living matter and non-living matter. This is a 
chemical distinction which is easily discovered. For 
living matter is characterized by a tendency to move 
toward that non-living matter which it desires to 
absorb and change into living matter. That matter 
which has not this tendency is called non-living 
matter. 

4th. By no known chemical analysis can we at 
present detect the natural force that causes this vital 
activity or tendency to move toward and absorb non- 
moving matter. 

26 



5th. Chemically the non-moving matter is called 
protoplasm (or formed and dissolving matter). The 
moving and absorbing matter is called bioplasm. Or 
it is distinguished as dead protoplasm and living 
protoplasm. 

6th. Protoplasm is capable of chemical analysis. 
Bioplasm is incapable of such analysis. Dead pro- 
toplasm is entirely different, chemically, from living 
protoplasm, or bioplasm. [See Appendix.] 

7th, Neither the cause nor the nature of this dif- 
ference is at present discoverable. 

8th. Dead protoplasm is instantly, in the twink- 
ling of an eye, transmuted into living protoplasm. 
When it is thus changed its chemical nature is so 
altered that it is incapable of recognition. 

9th. What causes this change? No one as yet 
can tell. It can only be defined by assuming an in- 
herent, intagible, immaterial force which tends to de- 
velop its pecidiar vitality. This is the Vital Force 
which is a scientific expression for the Soul. 

10th. All living protoplasm is identical. The 
same in oak or bird, in brain or bone. It is always a 
transparent structureless substance and gives no hint 
of its future life history. What differentiates this 
primal, homogenous, simple substance into the mani- 
fold forms of varied and complex lives the world pre- 
sents? It must be the indwelling, immaterial, vital 
force, the Soul. 

nth. The organization of man and animals is 
the result of changes which occur in the infinitesimal 
portions of matter called bioplasm. "Man and ani- 

26a 



mals, all their tissues and organs, their forms and 
structures, are the result of a series of changes, which 
commence in a portion of matter too minute to be 
weighed, which is invariably perfectly colorless and 
which appears perfectly structureless/' (Beale.) 

1 2th. In every part of the body are these little 
masses of living matter separated from each other by 
little more than the thousandth part of an inch. 
(Beale.) 

13th. Now, if we imagine all the colored and 
formed material of the body to be consumed, or to 
vanish, leaving only this colorless, structureless, trans- 
parent, living matter, we would have left a perfect, 
attenuated outline of the body, appearing as a trans- 
parent object, but corresponding precisely to the 
visible body. If this attenuated, transparent body 
were seen in the dark and emitted phosphorescent 
light, it would look like what we call a spirit.* But 
such a body actually exists within us, chemically 
perfect, although invisible to the naked eye, or even 
under the microscope, unless artificially tinctured with 
coloring matter. 

*In part II ("Psychological Proofs of Soul's Exist- 
ence"), will be found recent and corroborative discoveries 
proving the existence of the bioplastic body, especially its 
phosphorescent and luminous nature. I will be able to 
show that this body is in all respects exactly what a 
"spirit" is described to be by those who claim to have 
seen one. I will also indicate that it may be possible some- 
times scientifically to discover this body by mechanical ap- 
pliances, as by the use of the "cathode" ray we are able 
to penetrate sub-surface organs and tissues of the body. 

23b 



14. As we know that there are certain chemical 
and material forces which enter into the formation of 
so-called non-living matter; and these forces we can 
define and classify; and as the microscope has failed 
to discover or reveal the active forces, or even the 
chemical substances, that enter into the formation of 
so-called living matter, we must conclude that these 
forces are still undefined and as contradistinguished 
from well known chemical and physical forces may be 
said to be spiritual and immaterial. That is, the forces 
that actuate dead or non-living matter may be said to 
be material and apprehensible, those that actuate living 
matter immaterial or spiritual; they are unknown and 
at present incomprehensible. Hence, 

15th. Those so-called immaterial forces which 
enter into the formation of living matter, which origi- 
nate and develop the millions of transparent and struc- 
tureless bioplasts of the human body, which exist 
in every five-hundredth part of an inch throughout it 
— those immaterial forces constitute the soul of man. 
They are the opposites of the* material body; they 
therefore pervade every inch of the body and cannot 
be limited to any one spot or region. The soul of man 
is, then, adl through him, affecting every minutest 
portion of his organism. This is, in my judgment, 
a demonstration of the soul's existence, founded on 
verifiable scientific data. 

Two corollaries follow naturally the above dem- 
onstration. 

1 6th. Those immaterial forces which originated 
and developed the material body, are, therefore, inde- 

26c 



pendent of the body, and will continue to exist after 
the body expires and dissolves. 

17th. As those forces have evolved a body for 
their tenanting temporarily while here, this side the 
grave, and as they naturally continue to exist, they 
doubtless develop some kind of embodiment after the 
death of the material body. What sort of body that 
may be we cannot now say, save as it may be sug- 
gested in the attenuated, transparent body of the bio- 
plasts within our present organism. 



26d 



THE SCIENTIFIC 
DEMONSTRATION 



OF THE 



Soul's Existence and Immortality. 



Part II. Psychological Evidence. 



By 

HENRY FRANK. 



New York: 

THE ALLIANCE PUBLISHING CO., 

Windsor Arcade, 

569 Fifth Avenue 

1903. 



COPYRIGHT 
1903 

By HENRY FRANK 



THE SCIENTIFIC DEMONSTRATION OF THE SOUL'S 

EXISTENCE AND IMMORTALITY. 



PART II. PSYCHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE. 

In Part L, "On the Physical Basis of the Soul's 
Existence/' I undertook to show how the invisible 
biological body is the tenement of the soul. It will 
be remembered that I showed how this body was 
a translucent and invisible substance, conforming 
in perfect outline to the normal physical body (in 
all respects making a perfect fac-simile), but which 
could not be seen by the naked eye. Its discovery 
through the microscope, as I said, would be impos- 
sible because it cannot be seen as a whole, and the 
separate, minute bioplasts are discernible to the naked 
eye only when colored by ammonial carmine. One 
feature, however, that I did not then mention, which 
is of the highest importance, is that this biological 
body consists of a luminous substance. It is really 
a phosphorescent body, and if it were seen in the dark, 
wholly separated from the physical body, if such a 
thing were possible, it would appear very much as those 
objects that have been called spirits by those who 
claim to have seen them. 

I do not mean to insinuate by this, however, that 
this biological body is the spiritual body, that it is 



separable from the physical body, or that it is ever 
discernible by the human eye. I simply mean that it 
is an invisible, phosphorescent luminous substance, and 
that if we had the eyes to see such a substance, we 
would see that which in appearance would seem much 
like what people call a spirit. This is of so much 
importance that I think it necessary to dwell upon 
the point for a moment. 

The evidence that this is a luminous body lies in 
the fact that all bioplasm is phosphorescent, and that 
its very activity consists in illumination. We have a 
demonstration of ,this in the minuter forms of life ; 
for instance, the firefly, which illuminates the marsh 
fields and the low lands in the dusk of the summer 
evening". It is simply a phosphorescent manifestation 
of the living substance that we call bioplasm. The long 
brilliant light which we see frequently upon the ocean 
waves is caused by a vast accumulation of minute phos- 
phorescent animals, the emission of light from whose 
bodies is of the same nature as I am describing. As 
Manaceine says ("Dreams," p. 236) : "The emission 
of light is one of the properties of protoplasm. Phos- 
phorus enters largely into the composition of the 
human body, being present as phosphates in the bones 
and other tissues. As oxygen is being constantly con- 
veyed to the phosphoretted tissues, light will certainly 
be generated.* It would be interesting to know if a 
microphotograph of the circulation could be taken 

* "Many of the fungi are self-luminous, probably from 
phosphorus contained in their tissues. One example cited by 
Cooke was reported by a traveler in Australia. A large 

28 



after long exposure in darkness with a very sensitive 
plate/' Here the author makes an interesting insinua- 
tion of the possibility which I have already indicated 
in my previous discourse. The time may come 
when, indeed, we will be able, by certain new appli- 
ances, to discern this invisible and biological body be- 
cause of its luminousness, so that we will see it as 
we now see the human body, or photograph it as ex- 
isting invisible objects are photographed by the 
Roentgen ray. " 

This may seem almost a startling scientific proposi- 
tion, but there can scarcely be a doubt that we are 
on the verge of a marvelous revelation in this direc- 
tion. 

Meanwhile, associated with this fact is that of the 

specimen of an Agaric, sixteen inches in diameter, was 
hung up in a sitting-room, where it gave light for four or 
five nights, till it dried up. . . . Many of the fungi con- 
tained a milky juice and when the flesh is cut or bruised, and 
this juice exposed to the air, its color turns to a dull livid 
green." — "The Dynamic Theory," by Alexander, p. 204. 

"The most striking exhibition of phosphorescence in living 
things is found in the ocean, especially in the warmer climates. 
. . . It is said that the light emitted by these insects is so 
brilliant that two or three of them will light a medium-sized 
room. . . . When the water is agitated, as by the passage 
of a vessel, its whole pathway is illuminated by millions of 
little incandescent lamps, carried by as many millions of 
living animaculge. . . . Men have been able to read large 
print by the light of agitated sea water, and to tell the time 
of night by a watch. In all probability these living animal 
forms that are able to emit light have the power to exude a 
substance similar to phosphorus, which emits light by a slow 

29 



impression which the psychological experiences pro- 
duce upon the living substance of the body. We now 
know that every thought, sensation, emotion, and 
other psychical experience, is physically imprinted upon 
the minute cells of the nervous system ; that they leave 
permanent tracings in these cells, which some authors 
denominate as "scars," and that what we call our 
memory is but the restoration to our consciousness of 
the same impression which was made by the original 
experience upon the specific cells which entered into 
that state of consciousness. 

It will be seen, then, that the infinite experiences 
of our mind are written over and over again upon 
the minute cells of the invisible body; especially the 
cells of the brain and nervous system. Whenever a 

oxidation when it comes in contact with air and water." — 
Gray's u Nature Miracles," Vol. 2, pp. 207, 208. 

Even more wonderful illustrations of the existence of the 
phosphorescent animals have been given by travelers. "The 
common earth-worm, according to Mr. Holder, is some- 
times luminous. He says : 'One of the most brilliant dis- 
plays of animal phosphorescence I have observed came from 
such a source. ... In passing through on orange-grove 
one rainy night in Southern California, I kicked aside a large 
clump of earth when, to all intents and purposes, a mass of 
molten metal went flying in all directions, affording an un- 
usual display. The cause of the light was a single earth- 
worm, possibly two, not over two inches in length. The 
luminous matter was exuding from them and was permeating 
the surrounding soil, rendering it phosphorescent. The light- 
emitting mucus came off upon my hands, and the light lasted 
several seconds, gradually fading away/ " — Literary Digest, 
September 29, 1900. 

30 



state of consciousness arises out of a forgotten past, 
it is as if that which had been erased from the cells 
were suddenly restored. 

This physical condition may be illustrated by w r hat 
is known as a palimpsest. Many ages ago, when 
paper was a rarity and manuscripts were written upon 
parchment and carefully confined by the custodians 
of libraries, it was found necessary to use the same 
parchment over and over for various different writings. 
It was customary, therefore, to erase the original writ- 
ings upon these parchments, and then to write, once 
more, fresh matter upon the surface. Many of these 
parchments were finally discovered, and to the curious 
eyes of scholars revealed faint ghostlike figures beneath 
the surface of the clearer characters. They began to 
suspect that there might be writings buried beneath the 
surface, and in the course of time it was discovered 
that by washing the parchments with a chemical solu- 
tion, the writing which appeared so vague and ghost- 
like w r as resurrected, and thus were the original writ- 
ings restored. 

This illustrates precisely what occurs in the physi- 
ological cells of the body when an infinite series of 
impressions is made. Each series seems to be buried 
beneath the other, and lost in the oblivion of our un- 
conscious selves. At times when we are aroused by 
an awakening situation, and the conditions are favor- 
able, those forgotten and faded impressions are sud- 
denly restored, and what would appear as a mere 
scar upon the cell, becomes at last a firm and palpable 

SI 



figure, and one recalls that which had been perhaps 
for years absent from one's consciousness. 

In short, this whole biological body; i.e., the cel- 
lular substance of the physical system, constitutes what 
might be called the cylinder (comparing it with a 
phonograph), that receives the continuous impressions 
of the mind upon it. When once more these impres- 
sions pass through the mind, they are restored, as when 
we introduce an old cylinder into the phonograph we 
restore the sounds that had been lost. 

From this statement, regarding the psychical effects 
upon the biological body, we are led at once to the 
consideration of what is called the unconscious self. 
All these physical registrations are really the buried 
expressions of the normal consciousness which remain 
in a state of oblivion until they are once more lifted 
above the threshold, from the unconsciousness into 
which they have sunk. 

There are many people who question the reality of 
the unconscious self. It has been usually consigned to 
the limbo of mere speculation and vague supposition; 
but of late years the profounder and more scientific psy- 
chologists have reached the emphatic conclusion that 
the Unconscious is as distinctly a part of the human 
being as is the Conscious; that the Unconscious may 
really be regarded as the receptacle, continually regis- 
tering the impressions of the normal consciousness; 
and that, as these impressions sink into this reservoir, 
they pass out of the normal mind, but may be restored, 
under peculiar conditions, such as in dreams, or in 

32 



moments of excitement, or certain extraordinary ac- 
tivities which seem to arouse them. 

In order that my statments may not seem to be 
purely personal, and without authentic corroboration, 
I will quote a few authors who distinctly emphasize 
my idea. 

Mr. Maudsley, in his celebrated work, "Mind and 
Body," says : "The preconscious activity of mind, and 
•the conscious activity of mind, which may perhaps 
now be deemed to be established, are surely facts of 
which the most ardent introspective psychologist must 
admit that self-consciousness can give us no account/' 

Another celebrated author, Mr. Bastian, says: 
"Unconscious mental modifications do undoubtedly 
exist; that is, real mental actions, which, though they 
do not reveal themselves in consciousness, seem to be 
in all other respects similar to those which do mani- 
fest themselves/' 

That is, this author emphatically asserts that men- 
tal modifications — modifications, namely, which occur 
in the mind, consequently affecting the biological body 
to which I have referred — are continually developing 
in our experiences, of which we seem to be wholly 
ignorant. 

Another celebrated author, M. Ribot, says that 
there are innumerable nerve activities which have no 
accompanying psychic complement; that only a very 
limited number of physical or nerve activities resolve 
themselves into consciousness. Expressed in his own 
words, he says: "Though psychic activity always im- 

33 



plies nerve activity, conversely it is not true that nerve 
activity always implies psychic activity." 

This author insinuates that there may be innu- 
merable nerve activities which have no reflex regis- 
tration in the psychic consciousness; but that, on the 
contrary, every mental experience which we have, is 
necessarily registered somewhere in the physical or- 
ganism, showing that while the nerve activities may 
be continually exercised and the psychical activities be 
unaffected by them, never can we have a mental experi- 
ence unless such is registered in the nervous organism. 
Now, every one of those psychic activities, which is 
thus registered in the nervous organism, is a secret 
increment of the unconscious self. Those registra- 
tions lie buried in the physical organism; they are 
the physical basis of the unconscious self; and uncon- 
sciousness is restored to consciousness, and finds its 
intelligent expression when these nerve activities are 
once again aroused, and excite the psychic activities 
of which they are the complement. 

M. Ribot may, however, be mistaken, as I think I 
shall be able to prove further on, when he says that 
there are innumerable nerve activities which do not 
have any reflex psychic response. For, as we shall 
see, the phenomena of hypnotism have demonstrated 
that there is, although unconsciously, a psychic re- 
sponse to each nerve activity, and when the hypnotic 
subject is restored to consciousness he is able to recall 
those experiences of which normally he was wholly 
unaware. 

We find, then, that the realm of the Unconscious 
34 



is that abode wherein live all the thoughts, the ideas, 
the emotions, which the mind has ever engendered. 
In short, it is the permanent dwelling-place of every 
experience of the human being. However lost such ex- 
perience may be to the temporary, the normal or the 
transitory consciousness, it is never lost to the Uncon- 
scious. There it abides, inerasable, inextinguishable 
and enduring, as the human being himself. 

I will once more enforce this idea with some re- 
marks which I have taken from Professor Montgom- 
ery's work on the"Mind," Vol. II. , page 212, where 
he says: "We are constantly aware that feelings 
emerge unsolicited by any previous mental state, di- 
rectly from the dark womb of unconsciousness. 
Indeed, all our most vivid feelings are thus mystically 
derived; suddenly, a new irrelevant, unwilled, un- 
looked-for presence intrudes itself into consciousness. 
Some inscrutable power causes it to rise and enter the 
mental presence as a sensorial constituent." 

Again, we have the authority of the distinguished 
author, Wundt, in his "Physiological Psychology," 
quoted in the "Unconscious Mind," by A. T. Schofield, 
page 112. He says: "The traditional opinion that con- 
sciousness is the entire field of the internal life can- 
not be accepted. Our conscious psychic acts are very 
distinct from one another . . . and observation 
itself necessarily conducts to unity in psychology. 
But the agent of this unity is outside of conscious- 
ness, which knows only the result of the work done in 
the unknown laboratory beneath it. Suddenly a new 
thought springs into being. Ultimate analysis of 

35 



psychic processes shows that the Unconscious is the 
theater of the most important mental phenomena. 
The Conscious is always conditional upon the Uncon- 
scious/' 

We see, then, that we are on thoroughly scientific 
ground when we talk of the Unconscious Self. But 
because this has been the long-neglected section of 
the human being, and only until recently its existence 
has been admitted as a scientific verity, it becomes nec- 
essary to analyze and examine it further, in order 
that we may see how, if at all, it may differ from the 
normal consciousness. I shall undertake to show that 
its history, its powers, its activities, and its possibilities, 
are easily distinguishable from those of the normal con- 
sciousness, and that when we make and understand this 
distinction, we shall see that we have reached a divis- 
ion of the human self which seems to be permanent 
and indestructible, and whose experiences seem to 
justify the logical conclusion of the soul's existence 
and its immortality.* 

In order to make myself clear with regard to this 
proposition, I shall examine all the senses through 
which we ordinarily become acquainted with the ex- 

* "The Unconscious supplies every being in its instinct with 
what the body needs for self-preservation and for which its 
conscious thought does not suffice. The Unconscious pre- 
serves the species through sexual and maternal love, ennobles 
it through selection in sexual love, and conducts the human 
race historically, steadily to the goal of its greatest possible 
perfection. The Unconscious often guides men in their ac- 
tions by hints and feelings, when they could not help them- 
selves by conscious thought. The Unconscious furthers the 

36 



ternal world, and learn in what way these same senses 
are differently utilized by the unconscious self. 

Examining, first, then, the sensation of sight, we 
know that in our normal experience we see only 
through the physical eye; we know that we are de- 
pendent upon rays of light, upon certain vibrations 
of the atmosphere, and upon what we ordinarily under- 
stand as normal conditions for the perception of 
physical objects through the ocular organ. I know 
that with my eyes shut I cannot see an object that 
stands before me, although upon my eyelids I receive 
vague impressions of the light of the day, and might 
be able to distinguish between night and day, or be- 
tween a dark room and a lighted one. Other than that 
I would have no visual perception. But now the Un- 
conscious Mind seems to operate in an exactly opposite 
direction. It seems to be capable of piercing opaque 
objects, of seeing without the rays of light, and, in 
short, of possessing such visual perception as is im- 
possible to the normal physical eye. 

A whole array of experiences might be given under 
this head to prove that my statement is correct. The 
somnambulist, who may be sound asleep, and who has 

Conscious thought by its inspirations in small as in great 
matters, and in mysticism guides mankind to the presenti- 
ment of higher, supersensible unities. The Unconscious 
makes men happy through the feeling for the beautiful and 
artistic. If we institute a comparison between the Con- 
scious and the Unconscious, it is obvious that there is a sphere 
always reserved to the Unconscious, because it remains forever 
inaccessible to the Conscious"— Hartmann, "Philosophy of the 
Unconscious," Vol IL, p. 39. 

37 



no consciousness whatsoever of his physical activities, 
nevertheless walks with his eyes tightly closed, as well 
in the darkest night as in the brightest day, and un- 
haltingly proceeds to whatever destination he may de- 
sire; sees every object in the dark room as well, and 
perhaps better, than the normal eye when awake can 
see, and permits nothing whatsoever to interfere with 
his rational actions. 

Now, what is it that sees under those conditions? 
We know very well it is not the eye; we know it is 
not one of the normal physical sensations that assists 
in this perception; it can be nothing else than that 
Unconscious Self, of which ordinarily we stand in 
ignorance, which seems to be able to utilize the un- 
recognized registrations upon the nerve centers and 
obey their bidding, howsoever the normal conscious- 
ness may be ignorant thereof.* 

We have similar experiences in dreams, visions, 
reveries, and so on, when objects stand distinctly be- 

* At this juncture it will be profitable to introduce some 
highly scientific experiments made by French psychologists, 
that demonstrate the super-conscious activities of the so- 
called Unconscious in the function of the eyes. "After hav- 
ing determined experimentally the maximum distance at 
which the subject can read the largest letters of a series, we 
invite him to read certain smaller letters that are placed 
below the former. Naturally enough the subject is unable 
to do so ; but if at this instance, we slip a pencil into the 
anesthetic hand, we are able by the agency of the hand to 
induce automatic writing, and this writing will produce pre- 
cisely the letters which the subject is in vain trying to read. 
... It is highly interesting to observe that at the very 

38 



fore us as realistic as in actual life, and yet which we 
know are not physical objects, but are simply born 
of our momentary sensations, and can be discerned 
only by that sub-conscious self which uses neither 
eye nor ear to acquaint itself with an external world. 
Hence, we are forced to conclude that the sense which 
we call sight is experienced by the unconscious self 
according to laws and processes that are certainly 
easily distinguished from those of the normal sense. 
In like manner, we might speak of the senses of 

time the subject is repeatedly declaring that he does not see 
the letters, the anesthetic hand, unknown to him, writes out 
the letters one after the other. If, interrupting the experiment, 
we ask the subject to write of his own free will the letters 
of the printed series, he zvill not be able to do so, and when 
asked simply to draw what he sees, he will only produce a 
few zig-zag marks that have no meaning." 

Let us further remark, that although the subject main- 
tains that he sees nothing, the automatic, nevertheless, re- 
produces all the letters marked on the blackboard, with per- 
fect regularity, beginning at the first and ending at the last. 
. . . "I was easily able to establish the fact that, after 
closing the left eye of the subject, and putting into his an- 
esthetic hand, without his knowledge, a pencil, the automatic 
writing was brought to reproduce all the letters which we 
passed before the amaurotic eye. This amaurotic eye, ac- 
cordingly, did see, notwithstanding its apparent blindness; 
in other words, the second consciousness was the one that 
saw; it had not been struck with blindness at the same time 
as the first consciousness. . . ." "We must accordingly 
suppose that during the experiment the second consciousness 
directs the line of sight, without the knowledge of the prin- 
cipal subject." — "On the Double Consciousness," by Alfred 
Binet (The Open Court Pub. Co.), pp. 32, 33, 35. 

39 



hearing, of touch, of smell and taste, and in every ex- 
perience we can demonstrate that the unconscious self 
may exercise ail these sensations without associating 
itself whatsoever with the nerve activities or the phys- 
ical sense organs. I hardly think, however, it is neces- 
sary for me to dwell upon this, for these phenomena 
are so well understood in this progressive age, that 
probably none who reads this paper will dispute my 
statements. 

But one very remarkable fact upon which we must 
dwell is this, in so much as it is a point that bears spe- 
cifically upon the argument in hand. The fact to 
which I refer is that the Unconscious Self is always 
active inversely to the activity of the conscious self; 
i. e., when one is normally awake, fully realizing his 
ordinary conditions, his relations to the external 
world, etc., then his unconscious nature lies subsident, 
and he is wholly oblivious of it; but when the normal 
faculties are partially suppressed, or wholly paralyzed, 
then the powers of the unconscious self are aroused 
and awaken into activity ; in fact, there seems to be an 
exact ratio of activity expressed between the two 
selves, the Conscious and the Unconscious. For the 
deeper the sleep, the more certain seem to be the 
wakenings of unconsciousness. When a hypnotic sub- 
ject is put to sleep, the phenomena which can be dem- 
onstrated through him by the operator will usually 
depend upon the depth of the sleep into which he can 
be thrown ; if the sleep is but slight, the strong proba- 
bility is that he will still be vaguely conscious of him- 
self, and be so able to exercise his normal will that 

40 



he may refuse to obey the dictates of the operator; 
and, hence, the experiment will be partially a failure. 

Dr. Boris Sidis, in his work on the ''Psychology of 
Suggestion/' makes a very strong point of this. In 
numerous cases he proves how it was necessary to hyp- 
notize a subject again and again, usually not succeed- 
ing in such cases until the third hypnotisation ; at 
which time only was the will of the subject sufficiently 
suppressed ana his normal faculties submerged to en- 
able the operator to arouse the Unconscious Self and 
bring it into activity. This fact bears, as we shall see 
in our final conclusion, very strongly upon the argu- 
ment for immortality which I am proposing, and it is 
a point which should not be forgotten in the general 
survey of the proposition which I am advancing. 

Another fact which recent experiences have brought 
to light, and which is likewise seriously related to the 
problem we are discussing, is that the normal con- 
sciousness may not only be wholly suppressed (as in 
conditions of hypnotization), and the unconsciousness 
be aroused, but even the unconscious self may seem, 
for the time being, to be annihilated, and a wholly dif- 
ferent personality injected, as it were, into the or- 
ganism of an individual. There are numerous cases 
of this kind, where men who have lived ordinary lives 
without manifesting any eccentricities or extraordinary 
mental qualities have, under accidental conditions, 
seemed wholly to have lost their personalities and be- 
come possessed of characteristics and of life histories 
totally diverse from their own, and which they in their 
normal states could by no possibility recognize. We 

41 



have the famous case, for instance, of Mr. Ansel 
Bourne, which is recorded in the proceedings of the 
Psychical Research Society, which is so interesting 
and to the point that I will reproduce it here.* 

Mr. Bourne was an evangelist, operating in the 
New England States. He was a highly respectable 
and successful man in his business. He had never 
seemed to manifest any unusual eccentricities, or such 
characteristics as would attract the curiosity of ob- 
servers. Mr. Bourne left the field of his activities 
temporarily, went to the bank, drew a check to pay 
off the interest on his mortgage. As soon as he re- 
ceived the money he put it in his pocket, and instead 
of returning to his field of labor, wandered away to 
New York, and then into Pennsylvania, until he set- 
tled in Norristown, in that State. He met a certain 
gentleman, from whom he rented a store, saying that 
he, was a merchant, and desired to put in a stock of 
goods and dispose of them. He did so ; he passed un- 
der the name of Mr. A. J. Brown. He seemed to 
have always been Mr. A. J. Brown; he knew his his- 
tory, acted, talked and lived as if he had always been 
that individual. He conducted his business as an ex- 
perienced hand, as if he had always been at it through- 
out his life. He did not arouse the suspicions of his 
landlord in any manner whatsoever until after he had 
been there several months. Then, one morning, he 
awoke at five o'clock, and coming to himself once 
more as Ansel Bourne, was horrified, not knowing 

*See, also, "Telepathy," by R. Osgood Mason, M.D., p. 
Up- 

42 



where he was, or what he was doing. He rushed into 
his landlord's apartments, which were adjoining, and 
asked him what was the day and month of the year. 
The gentleman said it was the 14th. 

"Well,, how can it be the 14th? Does time run 
backward ?" 

"Oh, no," he replied, "not at all." 
"Well," he said, "where am I?" 
"You are in Norristown, Pennsylvania." 
"How did I come here?" I do not understand this. 
I was not aware that I was living in Norristown, 
Pennsylvania. 

The landlord assured him he was. 
But he said : "When I left home, the last day I re- 
member anything about is the 17th of the month. 
How, then, can it be the 14th of the month now?" 
"The 17th of what month?" 
Mr. Bourne replied: "The 17th of January." 
"Why," he said, "this is the 14th of March." 
"Well, then, where have I been all this time ? I do 
not know myself." 

The landlord said, "Are you not Mr. A. J. Brown?" 
"A. J. Brown? Why, no. I never heard of such 
a man. Ansel Bourne is my name." 

The landlord suspected him of insanity, and imme- 
diately telegraphed to the place Mr. Bourne said was 
his home. He received a reply that it was correct; 
that Mr. Bourne had disappeared from his home very 
suddenly on the 17th of January. His friends came 
and took him back, and he remained thereafter in his 
normal consciousness. . He was unable, however, to 

43 



tell anything about his experience during the several 
months of his wanderings. Afterwards his case was 
put in the hands of members of the Psychical Research 
Society. They were able to hypnotize him and re- 
stored his unconsciouness, so that he was able to re- 
veal in that state everything he had passed through 
during his temporary aberration. 

In this case we have the experience of the com- 
plete subsidence of both the conscious and the uncon- 
scious self, and the introduction of an abnormal and 
new personality, whose origin seems inexplicable.* 

*By means of the so-called method of distraction, Professor 
Janet entered into direct communication with the secondary 
self of his subject, Louise. 

"Do you hear me?" asked Professor Janet. 

Ans.—"No." 

J. — "But in order to answer one must hear?" 

Ans. — "Certainly." 

/. — "Then how do you manage?" 

Ans. — "I do not know." 

/. — "There must be somebody who hears me?" 

Ans.— "Yes." 

/.—'Who is it?" 

Ans. — "Not Louise." 

/. — "Oh, some one else. Shall we call her Blanche?" 

Ans. — "Yes, Blanche." 

/. — "Well, then, Blanche, do you hear me?" 

Ans.— "Yes." 

This name, however, had soon to be given up on account 
of disagreeable associations in the mind of Louise, and another 
name substituted. When Louise was shown the paper with 
the name of Blanche, which she had written, she was angry 
and tried to tear it up. 

/. — "What name will you have?" 



Further on I shall hope to be able to show what 
the origin of these duplicate personalities may be, and 
how the individuality is never lost, for that can always 
be restored, either in normal situations or by extraor- 
dinary efforts, such as hynotism and trance conditions. 

Ans. — "No name." 

/. — "You must; it will be more convenient." 

Ans.— "Well, then, Adrienne." 

Here, a strange situation was introduced. It was proved 
that Adrienne knew of things of which Louise was wholly 
unconscious. A special terror of Louise, which was evi- 
denced in wild exclamations during her hysterical fits, was 
somehow connected with hidden men. She could not, how- 
ever, recollect the incident. But Adrienne, when questioned, 
was able to describe the details. 

Louise was thrown into catalepsy; then Janet clinched her 
left hand (she began at once to strike out), put a pencil in 
her right hand, and said "Adrienne, what are you doing ?" 
The left hand continued to strike and the face to look rage, 
while the right hand wrote, "I am furious." "With whom?" 
"With F." "Why?" "I do not know, but I am very angry." 
Janet then unclinched the subject's left hand and put it 
gently to her lips. It began to blow kisses and the face 
smiled. "Adrienne, are you still angry?" "No, that is 
over." "And now?" "O, I am happy." "And Louise?" 
"She knows nothing; she is asleep" — "Alterations of Per- 
sonality," by Binet, p. 147. Also, "Psychology of Sugges- 
tion," by Boris Sidis, p. 130. 

WhenLeonieB. (a subject of M. Janet) is hypnotized, her 
personal character undergoes a radical change. Now, Leon- 
tine (that is Leonie hypnotized) was told by Janet that after 
the trance was over and Leonie had resumed her ordinary 
life, she (Leontine), was to take off her apron and then 
to tie it on again. Leonie was then awakened and con- 
ducted by Janet to the door, talking with her usual respectful 

45 



For Prof. Bernheim, the great hypnotist of France, 
reminds us that: "A somnambulist forgets when he 
awakes from being hypnotized all he does or says, but 
can be made to recall and repeat all by the simple as- 
sertion of the hypnotist that he can do so, and this 
without again falling asleep." Hence, we see that the 
unconscious condition may be brought into the con- 
scious state even without the individual being put to 
sleep; i. e., when once subjected to hypnotism or ar- 
tificially developed into a somnambulist, the subject 
may afterwards recall and repeat all his experiences 
during his unconscious condition, and may unite the 
two sections of himself, as it were (the conscious and 
the unconscious) when his normal mind is fully re- 
stored.* 

gravity. Meantime her hand untied the apron and took it off. 
Janet called Leonie's attention to the loosened apron. "Why, 
my apron is coming off!" she exclaimed, and with full 
waking consciousness tied it on again. She then continued 
to talk. At Leontine's prompting the hands once more began 
their work, and the apron was taken off again, and again re- 
placed, this time without Leonie's attention having been di- 
rected to the matter at all. . . . Next day Professor 
Richet hypnotized Leonie again, and presently Leontine, as 
usual, emerged. "Well/' she said, "I did what you told me 
to do yesterday." How stupid the other one looked while I 
took off her apron! Why did you tell her that the apron was 
falling off. I had to do the work all over again."— Bine* and 
Sidis, as above. 

*"From the foregoing we perceive that the separation of 
the two consciousnesses does not interrupt all communications 
between them. The associations of ideas, of images, per- 
ceptions, and movements— that is, of all that pertains to the' 

46 



All this goes to prove that, while there may be a 
variety of personalities, as such, which may either de- 
velop in or possess an individual, the individual him- 
self is sui generis, always one and the same. 

The above quotation of Bernheim also further 
proves that the activity of the Unconscious is never 
silenced ; the Unconscious is always awake, always ac- 
tive, and though it may seem to be a paradox, we may 
say it is always conscious, for at any time that which 
passes in the Unconscious, and of which the normal 
mind has no knowledge, may be restored to the normal 
mind, so that one may look, as it were, in a mirror and 
see the very reflection of one's self, of whose appear- 
ance he had not before been aware. 

Because of the difficulty of explaining dual per- 
sonalities, such experiences have been denied by cer- 
tain psychologists, and all that is now recognized as 
the subliminal self is rejected wholly from their specu- 
lation. But, in my judgment, there is no serious psy- 
chological problem that is involved in contemplating 
the possibility of one individual being possessed of sev- 
eral personalities at different times. We need but re- 
member that the consciousness is made up of an in- 
finite number of experiences, that each individual ex- 
perience is a state of consciousness, and that while 

sphere of the lower psychology — is preserved nearly intact; 
and, hence, an idea in the first consciousness provokes a 
movement in the second, and inversely, a sensation perceived 
by the second consciousness can awaken an idea in the first 
consciousness." — "On the Double Consciousness," Binet, page 
29. 

47 



we are limited to that one state of consciousness, our 
entire personality consists of but that alone. Where 
there are a number of such experiences associated, 
which remain in permanent connection, those united 
experiences constitute, for the time being, a fixed per- 
sonality. Now, we are conscious normally of a certain 
series of our experiences, united, for the time being, 
to our self realization, but there is an infinite quantity 
of experiences through which we have passed, and 
which are registered in our physical bodies, that are 
lost to our realization. 

It is conceivable that at certain times those experi- 
ences which have passed away might, by the law of 
association, be momentarily reunited with the con- 
scious activity to the exclusion of all other experiences. 
We have this condition, we may say, in our dreams, 
when a certain experience of the day or of the past 
week, or of a preceding year, suddenly obtrudes itself, 
and instantly there is associated with that experience 
a series of possibilities which are revealed as realities 
in our dreams. However absurd or impossible such 
associations may be in point of fact, they seem real in 
the dream, and in that condition we assume a per- 
sonality possessed of abnormal characteristics which 
we would be utterly unable to assume in our normal 
states. 

Now, that dream experience is in point of fact a 
dream-personality, as effectively and logically as our 
actual personalities are real experiences of the soul. 
In truth, we possess the possibility of not only one or 
two personalities, but of infinite personalities, inso- 

48 



much as our buried experiences may assume an in- 
finite number of associations.* 

The reason that we ordinarily maintain a normal 
and commonplace consciousness is because by the law 
of association we carry along in our realization a fixed 
train of experiences, all of which are logically asso- 
ciated with our normal modes of thinking. When we 
fall into abnormal conditions, such as in dreams, reve- 
ries, fevers, trance states, etc., then we attract a wholly 
unusual and extraordinary train of lost experiences, 
or, (through the imagination), of possible experiences. 
These, being attached to our temporary consciousness, 
constitute a momentary and abnormal personality. 

*In this analysis I have given the psychological elements 
which enter into the formations of temporary and persistent 
personalities. Dr. Boris Sidis, in his work, "The Psychology of 
Suggestion," pp. 208-212, gives the physiological analysis which, 
I think, would be profitable to reproduce here. He says : "The 
mental process of association and aggregation of psychic con- 
tents in the synthesis of moment-consciousness, and the in- 
cluding of the moment-consciousness in synthesis of higher 
and higher unities can be expressed in physiological terms 
of cellular activity." He then outlines the nerve system, re- 
minding us that the cells are not anatomically connected, and 
associate only functionally, through physiological contact, 
forming into groups, systems, communities, clusters, con- 
stellations in the respective order traced. He practically proves 
that each cell is organized into an individual and unique life, 
with its own consciousness, memory, etc., and that the multi- 
plicity of cells associate into the so-called systems, constella- 
tions, etc., according to the duration of the psychic experiences 
whose impressions they receive. "The simpler, the less com- 
plicated, a group of cells is, and the longer and more fre- 

49 



Just as a magnet will draw together certain portions 
of steel fillings that may be beneath it, and attach them 
to the ends of the magnet, so by the law of association 
the mind may attach to either an ordinary or an ex- 
traordinary experience a whole series of mental states 
which, coming into this momentary association, may 
awaken an extraordinary state of consciousness and 
develop an unusual and unknown personality. 

We see how, under these circumstances, it might 
be possible for a Molly Fancher to be possessed of 
four so-called different personalities who control her 
at different times, because she is for the time being 
lost in a certain state of mind which calls up a fixed 
train of experiences that are logically associated with 

quent their fine processes come in contact, the greater is the 
tendency of that group to form permanent relations; we 
may, therefore, say that the organization of a system or con- 
stellation of cells is in proportion to the duration and fre- 
quency of their associative activity." 

He then proceeds to show how these time-aggregates of 
psychic elements, expressed in cellular associations, may be 
dissipated into their several primary conditions, by the in- 
fluence of psychic stimuli playing upon them. "Association 
fibers combining the highest constellations are the first to 
give way; they are the latest to arrive in the course of 
psycho-physical evolution, they are the most unstable, the 
least organized, and are also the first to succumb to the 
process of dissolution." 

The above is a physiological reason for the rapid disso- 
lution of dream forms, apparitions, and the visions of day- 
reveries. It also explains how numerous personalities may 
grow up in the organization of a single individual, as in the 
illustrations above given. 

50 



that temporary mental state. While she is in this 
mental condition, naturally, she is diverted from her 
normal consciousness, because all logical associations 
of her ideas are attached to the one conception which, 
for the time being, possesses her. In like manner in 
dreams, we do not know ourselves, as we really are, 
but conceive ourselves to be possessed of unusual 
qualities and powers, sometimes entering into other 
personalities, and for the time being affected by their 
capacities and qualifications. 

Now, such diversity of personalities might for a 
moment seem to indicate the obliteration of the soul; 
or that what we call the soul is but the psychical cor- 
relate of physical activities. In cases of fever or other 
abnormal physical conditions, the mind seems to be 
but a reflex of the intense cellular activities of the 
body, the thoughts that are aroused in such conditions 
seem to be but the resultant of the physical friction 
which exists in the tissues of the body. On this theory 
Ribot, it would seem, rests his argument that there 
are innumerable nerve activities which do not always 
have a psychical complement ; i. e., that the nerves are 
often aroused to experience certain sensations which 
do not find a reflex expression in the mental conscious- 
ness. Ribot here overlooks the point that those very 
physical conditions may be recalled to the conscious- 
ness, if the individual can be thrown into a hypnotic 
state and forced to submit to the dictates of the opera- 
tor, who will command him to see and to reveal what 
his unconscious experiences were at the time. 

This was the error which Prof. Tyndal fell into 
51 



when he narrated his experience in the Belfast ad- 
dress, to the effect that he had been subjected to the 
concussion of a vast number of electrical volts, suffi- 
cient under certain conditions to have killed him. He 
was thrown into a state of unconsciousness, and re- 
mained in that state for several days. He asked the 
question: " Where, then, was I — my soul, during this 
period of oblivion ?" Prof. Tyndal lived before the 
science of hypnotism was recognized as respectable in 
the medical world. But we now know that it might 
have been possible to subject him to hypnotic control, 
and to have forced his unconscious self to have re- 
vealed what its experiences were during this period of 
oblivion, resulting from the electrical concussion. 

As a modern illustration in point and one which 
emphatically demonstrates the fact that the hiatus in 
consciousness caused by accident may be restored by 
psychological methods, I will here reproduce the re- 
markable case of Rev. Thomas C. Hanna, a patient of 
Dr. Boris Sidis, a full account of which is given in his 
"The Psychology of Suggestion," chapter 22 : 

"On April 15, 1897, Mr. Hanna met with an ac- 
cident, and was picked up in a state of utter uncon- 
sciousness. When the patient came to himself he was 
like one just born. He had lost all knowledge acquired 
by him from the date of his birth up to the time of his 
accident. He lost all power of voluntary activity, 
knew nothing of his own personality, and could not 
recognize persons or objects. He had in fact no idea 
whatever of the external world. . . Nothing re- 
mained of his past life, not even a meaningless word, 

52 



syllable or articulate sound. He was totally deprived 
of speech. The conversation of the people surround- 
ing him was to him nothing but sounds, without 
meaning. He had lost all sense of order in his re- 
sponse to the calls of Nature. The patient was smitten 
with full mental blindness." 

Notwithstanding this terrible condition of utter 
oblivion, by a process which Mr. Sidis invented, he 
finally restored the ordinary consciousness of this pa- 
tient and made him a sound man again. But the point 
in the case for us especially to observe and emphasize 
is that during the periods of hybnoidization (not full 
hypnosis) his former life returned to him, incident by 
incident, until all his past was restored to his normal 
memory. Nothing whatever, not even the minutest 
event was lost out of his sub-consciousness. There 
everything that had transpired within his experience 
was indelibly and unobliterably registered. This case 
alone more than answers Dr. Tyndal's query as to 
what became of his soul during the period of obscura- 
tion which befell him because of his accident. Noth- 
ing was lost to Dr. Tyndal ; what was lost was merely 
the association in the memory-consciousness of Dr. 
Tyndal, which had been dissipated because of the dis- 
solution of the aggregation of the nerve cells by the 
electrical concussion. 

All such experiences go to prove that while there 
may be a variety of personalities that may develop in 
any life, nevertheless, the original persistent individur 
alify can never be extracted from the human being. No 
matter if one in his dreams, in diseases, in states of 

53 



hypnotism, or in accident, acquire a variety of apparent 
personalities which, for the time being, may possess 
him, there is the concatinating chain of individuality 
that binds together all these personalities, and which 
in itself is indestructible. 

This is the marvelous fact — that the ego, or I, the 
self-consciousness, the eternally self-realizing, is 
always back of these various and seemingly contradic- 
tory experiences; in the end, man always knows him- 
self. I always know that I am I, you always know 
that you are you. Although seemingly for a time be- 
ing the I and the you are obliterated, science has now 
been able to prove to us that it is not an obliteration 
in fact; it is only a temporary subsidence, and if the 
proper conditions or appliances or manipulations Can 
be brought to play, the ego that has been for the time 
being submerged, may be again aroused, and once 
more gather its innumerable experiences through 
whatsoever personalities they may have been mani- 
fested. 

I might illustrate this point by a number of beads 
hung upon a string. When they are all attached to a 
single string, bound together, they form an individual 
necklace, but each bead in itself constitutes a separate 
entity, being merely associated for the time being with 
the rest of the beads in order to form the necklace. 
Now, each one of these beads stands related to the 
necklace as each individual experience in a man stands 
related to his whole individuality. Cut the string, and 
the beads will be scattered upon the floor; so, for the 
time being, suppress the consciousness of the indi- 

54 



vidual, and his manifold experiences may be scattered 
into diverse and exceptional relations, or may seem 
to be wholly separated from his individuality, just as 
the beads might be gathered up again, but in separate 
sections, and each section might be strung upon a sep- 
arate string. Now, all those several strings would be 
composed of the same beads that constituted the orig- 
inal necklace. So, the diverse experiences of an in- 
dividual may be separated from the original ego, and 
under certain peculiar conditions, temporarily asso- 
ciated with other experiences which seem to wholly 
obliterate the original individual; but just as we can 
gather together all those beads and attach them at last 
to the single string of which the original necklace con- 
sisted, so we may gather together all the diverse expe- 
riences and multiplex personalities through which the 
individual has passed and remerge them into the per- 
sistent and indestructible individual self. In short the 
string is the individual, and as the string holds together 
all the beads, so the individual holds together all the 
diverse experiences and personalities through which it 
may pass. Here rests our hope, here is the foundation 
of our science: it is the indestructibleness of the in- 
dividual; the individual is indivisible. He is always 
one and the same, himself, and inseparable. 

Now, this thought seems to have been almost 
wholly lost sight of by many psychologists, for they 
regard merely the personalities themselves, and see- 
ing that they constitute separate lives, variously as- 
sociated with one individuality, it occurred to them that 
the individual was not a reality at all, but that he was 

55 



merely the accident of the associated personalities. On 
the contrary, in point of fact, the individual is the 
basis and sub-stratum of the personalities; he exists 
before his personal experiences; his personality is 
temporary and transitory; himself, the individual, is 
permanent and eternal.* 

In view of the fact that the consciousness is un- 
doubtedly the seat of the soul, and that it really never 
ceases in our normal experiences, although at times 
it seems to, rests the scientific hope of the soul's con- 
tinued existence after death. We saw, in the argu- 
ment which was advanced for the Physical Basis of 
the Soul the probability of the continued existence of 
the invisible body, which was constructed out of im- 
material forces, that build up the interior biological 
organism ; and as we then asserted, while there was no 
present proof of the form or qualities of which such 

*May we, then, go a step further and assert that the mental 
compound which constitutes the ego is constructed from these 
elements? On this point recent researches have thrown some 
light, and although it is negative, yet it is none the less valu- 
able. It is this : that the genesis of a personality cannot be 
explained by the association of ideas. Subjects who divide 
their existence between two different mental conditions may 
in one of these conditions be utterly unable to remember 
events that are connected with the other. The loss of mem- 
ory is so absolute that a person seen during one of these 
conditions is not even recognized in the second, and the 
physician must be twice introduced in order to be known 
by both personalities. It is enough to say that the usual mag- 
netism of memory ceases to operate. 

"Under slightly different conditions of experiment several 
psychological instances co-existed in the same individual, and 

56 



an organism might be composed, yet the fact that 
these immaterial forces were indestructible, that they 
required a frame in which to manifest their energies, 
and that they had built up within the physical body an 
internal, invisible body, which was not subject to dis- 
solution or chemical analysis, left the broad field for 
the speculative possibility, if not the positive as- 
surance, of these immaterial forces continuing to hold 
together an invisible organism, through which they 
might operate, even after the physical body had been 
dissolved. When now we couple with that argument 
the assurance of the existence of the unconscious self, 
which has persistently registered its experiences in 
this biological body, and the fact that this unconscious 
self is permanent, indestructible and always active, we 
seem to have found both the physical and the psycho- 
logical basis on which to rest a satisfactory argument 

ideas belonging to one of the consciousnesses suggest other 
ideas to the other consciousness. This fact of experiment 
shows us in a new light the inadequacy of association to 
explain the formation of synthesis. . . . The intellect is 
not composed entirely of an automatism of ideas and move- 
ments, since just where this automatism goes on most regu- 
larly, consciousness may stop and personality find its limita- 
tion. 

"In short, the same individual may have a plurality of 
memories, a plurality of consciousnesses, and a plurality of 
personalities, and each of these memories, consciousnesses, 
and personalities knows only what happens within its own 
limits. Outside of Our consciousnesses may occur conscious 
thoughts in us that we are not aware of." — From "Altera- 
tions of Personality," p. 352, by Binet. 

57 



for the soul's existence both here and beyond the 
grave. 

There is much that may cause us to rejoice in such 
a scientific postulate, insomuch as all humanity in- 
stinctively desires to continue existence beyond the 
grave, if such existence can be shown to be subjected 
to rational and progressive laws, that awaken the pos- 
sibility of higher and sublimer unfoldments in one's 
conscious realizations. 

To live forever in misery would be the despair of 
the human race. An immortality founded upon such 
a dogma is not only debasing, outrageous and unintel- 
ligent, but a libel upon that Power, be it an intelligent 
God or a mere active force, which has brought the 
universe into being, and evolved the glory of the 
human mind. 

Man loves to live when life is full of hope, power 
and attainment ; to live and suffer is worse than not to 
live at all, if such suffering shall not evolve into some 
final peace and satisfaction. 

One fears not mere death of itself, if that were all 
there were of such experience. The mere dissolution 
into the dull clods of earth from which our bodies 
were produced is not so shocking or repulsive, if we 
could but know that with such dissolution the con- 
sciousness itself shall cease forever. 

Eternal sleep has its comforts, even in contrast 
with the transporting joy that an immortal conscious- 
ness awakens. To sleep forever and to be at peace is 
far better than forever to be awake and be in misery. 

58 



There are those who shudder at the very thought of 
death, and all mankind from time immemorial has in- 
stinctively recoiled from its cold and clammy touch. 

Death is a fearful thing. 
To die and go we know not" where; 
To lie in cold obstruction and to rot. 
This sensible, warm motion to become 
A kneaded clod; and the delightful spirit 
To bathe in fiery floods or to reside 
In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice. 
To be imprisoned in the viewless winds 
And blown with violence round about 
The pendant world ; or, to be worse than worst of those — 
That lawless and uncertain thoughts 
Imagine howling ; 'tis too horrible ! 
The weariest and most loathed worldly life 
Which age, ache, penury, and imprisonment 
Can lay on Nature is a paradise 
To what we fear of Death. 

Such dread of death, however, is irrational to one 
who holds a logical conception of the universe. Life 
is everywhere; death is to real being what sleep is to 
normal activity. We know when we are asleep, be- 
cause we are ordinarily awake, and we think of death 
simply as a possibility contrasted with the reality of 
life. We know of death because we cannot wake our- 
selves from that temporary cessation of normal activi- 
ties which conditions the body when its physical 
mechanism ceases to operate. But because we have 
thus far been acquainted only with the physical mech- 
anism, or mere body, and have not even suspected that 
interior body of which I spoke (which to us seems to 
have no existence), therefore, we cannot realize how 

59 



we may still continue to act in another though invis- 
ible body, when it has been permanently separated 
from the body we daily recognize. 

We simply shrink from the possibility of an expe- 
rience through which we have not yet passed. But, 
if we are every moment abiding in the unconscious 
capacities of the invisible, vital-body, which constitutes 
our real living selves, yet think we live in this external 
body, which is not at all alive, but is every moment 
dying — then why cannot we conceive how, when this 
dying body is for ever dead and dissolved in the 
primary dust from which it came, we may still con- 
tinue to live in that now invisible body, which then 
may be as visible to our spiritual perception as is this 
physical body to our present senses. 

// we can now live in the seemingly self-contra- 
dictory condition of having a body without knowing 
it } then why cannot we, beyond the grave, possibly live 
in a body of which we may now be unconscious, but 
which may then be normally realized by us. 

There is in this supposition at least nothing illog- 
ical, nothing contradictory to the physical conditions 
in which we now abide; nothing that the laws or 
processes of chemistry can disprove; nothing that any 
operations of the universe stand in contradiction of. 

As we have evolved from an invisible, interior body 
into a visible exterior body, and as the internal body 
still continues to exist, although we ourselves are un- 
conscious of it, so when the external body has dis- 
solved forever, we may still continue to exist in that 
invisible body, or in some similar one, which the same 

60 



spiritual forces may develop. Then we shall become 
conscious of the invisible body as we are now of the 
visible. 

There is indeed much beauty and genuine logic in 
that very quaint epitaph which Benjamin Franklin in- 
dited to be inscribed upon his tombstone, but which 
afterwards he requested not to be done, and left it as 
a literary legacy to the brotherhood of kindred minds. 
These beautiful, pathetic and quaint words, express- 
ing his hope of immortality, were born out of his own 
experience as a typesetter and practical workman: 

The Body 

of 

Benjamin Frankin 

Printer 

(Like the cover of an old book 

Its contents torn out 

And stript of its lettering and gilding) 

Lies here food for worms. 

But the work shall not be lost 

For it will appear once more 

In a new and more elegant edition 

Revised and corrected 

by 

The Author.* 

And such indeed is the life of each of us. It is but 
one small book, writ large with each day's experience, 
its passions and its hopes, its joys and fears. We know 
not to-day what w T e were yesterday; the vast compass 
of our thoughts and our aspirations, yea, even our 
conscious experiences, are now lost to our memories, 

* See "Immortality," by Paul Carus. 
61 



and but one slight section of the twenty-four hours of 
activity remains with us. What, then, is this life 
through which we are passing? How little of it all 
remains with us ! How small a portion of the infinite 
series of experiences can we call our own ! 

We are less ourselves than we are others with 
whom we associate; for that larger part of us is 
not ourselves at all; it is lost, lost, and yet not lost 
forever, because it is indited on the registry of that 
Infinite Self which constitutes our unconsciousness, 
but which is the great memorial sheet wherein we live 
and move and have our being — that registry whose 
leaves are indestructible, whose writings are indelible, 
and which, in their mutual associations, constitute that 
Great Book which we call our life. 

Some day, doubtless, although these leaves shall 
have been torn from between the coverlids and scat- 
tered throughout the vast expanse of space, they shall 
again be gathered and bound within, if not the old 
coverlids, at least some other. These may be brighter, 
more beautiful and more magnificently carved, never- 
theless they shall reveal to us our forgotten selves, 
and we that had been lost shall be restored. 

As the quaint philosopher says, the old book will 
be seen again, "its contents torn out, stript of its let- 
tering and gilding," but "revised and corrected" by 
each author, who survives the musty volume of time 
to enjoy the pages that shall never see destruction. 

Thus, then, have we stated both the scientific and 
the philosophical postulate upon which the hope of im- 

62 



mortality rests, and upon which we base the proof of 
our soul's existence. 

But that the thread of thought may be firmly held 
by the reader, and that the argument may stand out 
strongly before his mind, I will present the following 
series of logically related propositions, which will, I 
trust, satisfactorily demonstrate the theory on which 
I have been building my argument: 

First: Man is possessed of unconscious mind. It 
is the real, permanent, constant, identical and omnis- 
cient self ; absolutely all that is experienced in the nor- 
mal consciousness is there inerasably registered; and 
likewise therein are inscribed all the unconscious expe- 
riences of the body which may sometime be trans- 
muted into consciousness.* 

*Boris Sidis says : "The facts of past hypnotic negative 
hallucinations or of systematized anesthesia still further re- 
veal the presence of the sub-conscious self below the upper 
waking consciousness. " Many experiments made by Bern- 
heim and Liegeois, and Binet and Fere, have quite sub- 
stantially demonstrated this proposition. M. Liegeois, after 
experimenting on a number of peculiar cases, in which he 
caused the two personalities of the upper and the lower self 
in the same individual to be wholly separated, makes this 
comment, as follows : "During the negative hallucinations the 
subject sees what he does not seem to see, and hears what 
he does not seem to hear. Two personalities or selves exist 
within him. A sub-conscious ego that sees and hears and a 
conscious ego that does not see or hear." As a further dem- 
onstration of the existence of the sub-conscious self, Boris 
Sidis says: "While the subject is in a hypnotic condition, we 
can suggest to him that on awakening he shall not remem- 
ber anything, but when put to the automatic recorder he 

63 



Second: The activity of the unconscious mind, or 
the soul, is inverse to the activity of the normal or con- 
scious mind. This statement is proven in the case of 
dreams, catalepsy and hysteria, as natural conditions, 
and in the artificial states of hypnotism and induced 
somnambulism. In these conditions, the activities of 
the unconscious mind of the patient or subject are in- 
creased in proportion as the normal activities of the 
body and mind are suppressed.* The deeper the hyp- 
nosis, the more wonderful the activities of the uncon- 
scious mind or soul; hence, 

shall be able to write everything that has taken place in a 
state of hypnosis. The subject is then awaked, but remem- 
bers nothing at all of what he has passed through while in the 
state of hypnotic trance. As soon, however, as he is put to the 
automatic recorder, the hand gives a fully revealed account 
of all the events. If now you ask the subject what it is that 
he has written, he stares at 3'ou in confusion : he knows 
nothing at all of the writing." This author concludes, with 
many others of distinction, who have experimented in this 
field of investigation, "that the sub-consciousness is not a 
mere unconscious physiological automatism, but a conscious- 
ness, a self in possession of memory, and even intelligence. 
Experiments and observations, however, go further to prove 
that this hidden intelligence may be of still higher organism; 
it may possess even some degree of self-consciousness; it 
may grow and develop." — "Psychology of Suggestion." 

* "When the conscious mind is in abeyance, as in dreams or 
reverie, or artificially as in hypnotism or narcotism, the 
unconscious mind emerges from its obscurity, and impressions 
unconsciously formed upon the brain are seen and noticed 
for the first time; just as the receding tide lays bare the 
sands. In defective intellects, when the conscious mind is 
weak, the power of the sub-conscious is remarkably seen. 

64 



Third: If the unconscious, subliminal self is per- 
manent, persistent, ever-active, all-knowing, ever re- 
membering, and its activity is intensified inversely as 
the activity of the normal consciousness (i. e., as the 
conscious mind is suppressed, or paralyzed, the soul 
activities are intensified) ; then, naturally, when the 
body is completely paralyzed or dead, the soul activi- 
ties will be most active, most alive. 

Fourth: As we can discover no break in the soul 
activities, i. e., as the unconscious mind can never be 
found asleep or discontinued,* and as it is most alive 

Miss Martineau tells of an idiot who had his hands washed 
and his nails cut at ii.io A.M., and who came of his own 
accord exactly at the same Hour each day to have the opera- 
tion, repeated, although he knew nothing consciously of time." 
— "The Unconscious Mind," A. T. Schofield, p. 92. 

* "I have gathered a number of examples of mental activity 
in sleep, which give evidence of concentrated intellectual ef- 
fort, such as continuous course of reasoning continued after 
waking ; listening to a lengthy discourse, which must have 
been composed by the sleeper, reflecting on a problem and 
exercising such satisfaction with the result that the person 
awoke, got up at once, and wrote out the results." — "Relations 
of Mind and Body," Professor Calderwood, p. 42. 

We all know how Coleridge tells us that he composed the 
beautiful poem of "Kubla Khan," during his dream, and 
wrote it out on awakening, but could not add another line 
to the ones he had dreamed. 

"R. L. Stevenson shows how his dreams increased in 
complexity with his life, until, when he had to write stories 
for publication, he got most of his ideas from his dreams. He 
says: 'My Brownies (a new name for the unconscious mind), 
God bless them, who do one-half my work for me when I am 
fast asleep, and in all human likelihood do the rest for me 

65 



when the body is most dead, it necessarily follows that 
it never sleeps and never dies, and is, therefore, im- 
mortal. 

Fifth: As the unconscious mind may be but a se- 
ries of unregulated and unrelated states of conscious- 
ness, unless controlled by a single will and a persistent 
individuality, the inter-penetrating and all-preserving 
ego must be the sustaining energy that aggregates the 
various experiences we personate into a final, per- 
manent whole, and constitutes our indestructible and 
eternal self. Naturally only those attain to the final 
triumph of the immortal after-life whose ego is suffi- 
ciently strong to gather up and hold together the in- 
finite personalities through which it has been passing, 
either through this life or many possible preceding 
lives. The ego is the single string that binds the 
innumerable beads (the personalities) and holds them 
together in a single necklace; i. e., the permanent in- 
dividuality. 

as well when I am wide awake and fondly suppose I do 
it for myself. I had long been wanting to write a book on 
man's double being. For two days I went about racking my 
brain for a plot of any sort, and on the second night I dreamt 
the scene in "Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde," at the window; and 
a scene, afterward split in two, in which Hyde, pursued, took 
the powder and underwent the change in the presence of his 
pursuer." — "The Unconscious Mind/' by Schofield, p. 166. 



66 



THE SCIENTIFIC 
DEMONSTRATION 



OF THE 



Soul's Existence and Immortality. 



Part III. Appendices. 



By 

HENRY FRANK. 



New York: 
THE ALLIANCE PUBLISHING CO., 

Windsor Arcade, 

569 Fifth Avenue, 

1903. 



COPYRIGHT 

1903 

By HENRY FRANK 



APPENDIX I. 

Note to p. 13. 

To show how the theory that I am advocating is 
in perfect keeping with the most recent researches and 
conclusions of the advanced natural scientists I will 
present a few passages from Ernst Haeckel's latest 
work "The Riddle of the Universe/' Prof. Haeckel 
is regarded as a Materialist by most orthodox believers, 
but his logical conclusions are not any more material- 
istic than are the orthodox conclusions. The whole 
issue lies in the definition. If soul be defined as an 
impalpable, intangible, immaterial spiritual entity — 
then it naturally becomes nothing but a subject of faith 
and falls wholly outside the possibilities of scientific 
research and analysis. But if soul be defined as I have 
in this treatise, and which I believe is thoroughly con- 
sistent with the discovered facts of science, then it be- 
comes a subject susceptible of the most exacting scien- 
tific analysis and of final comprehension. 

Haeckel says ("Riddle," p. 89) : "The prevailing 
cenception of the psychic activity [the soul], which 
we contest, considers soul and body to be two distinct 
entities. These two entities can exist independently 
of each other ; there is no intrinsic necessity for their 
union. The organized body is a mortal, material na- 
ture, chemically composed of living protoplasm and its 



compounds. The soul, on the other hand, is an im- 
mortal, immaterial being, a spiritual agent, whose mys- 
terious activity is entirely incomprehensible to us. 
This trivial conception is, as such, spiritualistic, and its 
contradictory is, in a certain sense, materialistic. It is 
at the same time supernatural and transcendental, since 
it asserts the existence of forces which can exist and 
operate without a material basis; it rests on the as- 
sumption that outside of and beyond nature there is a 
"spiritual" and immaterial world, of which we have 
no experience, and of which we can learn nothing by 
natural means." 

Now Haeckel puts his opposition to this latter and 
unscientific conception of the soul no more emphatically 
than I would myself. 

If we cling to this so-called "spiritualistic" idea of 
the soul we can never prove or comprehend its exis- 
tence, and it becomes, as I have said, but a vague and 
confusing subject of religious faith. 

But my contention is that the psychic activity of 
the soul has a natural immediate existence and a ma- 
terial basis, and it is therefore as amenable to the study 
and apprehension of a scientific mind as is the body 
itself and the material world. 

This is the gist and emphasis of my thesis. 

More than this, I am contending that such a dis- 
covery and definition of the soul, although it confines 
it absolutely to the natural and scientific world, not 
only does not remove it from the plane of religious and 
spiritual thought, but the more strongly presents its 
claim upon the spiritual nature of man. 

68 



For when by the scientific penetration of human 
study we grasp a knowledge of the soul, and a truly 
scientific psychology, then have we not only estab- 
lished a method of research that leads to its successful 
discovery, but we have likewise found a scientific 
datum upon which to construct a successful thesis for 
the soul's actual existence and its extra-mortem exis- 
tence, as already explained in this treatise. 

In further illustration of the accuracy and scientific 
approval of my definition of the soul (stated on pp. 
9 and 19 of this work) I will continue to quote from 
Haeckel. 

He says ("Riddle," p. 148) : "The theory of 
descent, combined with anthropological research, has 
convinced us of the descent of our human organism 
from a long series of animal ancestors by a slow and 
gradual transformation occupying many millions of 
years. Since then we cannot dissever man's psychic 
life from the rest of his vital functions — we are rather 
forced to the conviction of the natural evolution of our 
whole body and mind — it becomes one of the main 
tasks of modern monistic psychology to trace the 
stages of the historical development of the soul of man 
from the soul of the brute." 

Again on p. 152 "I published a theory 33 years ago 
to the effect that every living cell has psychic proper- 
ties, and that the psychic life of the multicellular ani- 
mals and plants is merely the sum total of the psychic 
functions of the cells which build up the structure." 

In other words Haeckel shows very clearly that the 
69 



soul, as manifested in living organisms, has its origin 
in the primordial individual cell, out of which the en- 
tire structure of every living thing evolves. The soul 
grows gradually and fully as the body grows ; and in 
proportion as the body is aborted or arrested in its 
physical growth (i.e., in proportion to the limitation of 
the quantity and quality of the cells that make up the 
sum total of the living organism) is the soul likewise 
arrested and aborted. Therefore, the search for the 
soul will never be successful if confined to the inves- 
tigation of any single organ of the body (as among the 
older psychologists) or even in the sum-total of single 
faculties that seem to be the especial instruments or 
organs of the soul. 

The soul becomes an entity as the body becomes an 
entity, by growth and development; and the growth 
and development of the soul is in exact commensura- 
tion with the growth and development of the cellular 
body. 

Hence, as I have contended in my definition of the 
soul, "it commingles with every fibre and tissue, every 
organ and member of the body ; it is coterminous with 
the body, and is a personal soul, only so long as it re- 
tains this coterminous relation/' 

If this conclusion is materialism, then it is at least 
spiritualized materialism — whereas, the traditional defi- 
nition of the soul is materialized spiritualism. 

Note to p. 14. 

In order that the reader may be furnished with a 

70 



more detailed statement of Dr. Beale's conclusions, I 
quote him here at greater length : "Even in the small- 
est organisms which exhibit the simplest characters, 
as well as in every texture of the most highly complex 
beings, we can demonstrate two kinds of matter, dif- 
fering in very important particulars from one another ; 
or perhaps it would be more correct to say, matter in 
two different states, manifesting different properties, 
and exhibiting difference in appearance, chemical com- 
position, etc., and physical characters. * * * 

"Not even the smallest living particle seen under 
the one-fiftieth of an inch objective consists of matter 
in the same state in every part, for it is composed of I, 
living matter ; 2, matter formed from this, and 3, pab- 
ulum, which it takes up. The matter in the first state 
is alone concerned in development and the production 
of those materials which ultimately take the form of 
tissue, secretion, deposit, as the case may be. It alone 
possesses the power of growth, and of producing mat- 
ter itself out of materials differing from it materially 
in composition, properties and pozvers" {Protoplasm, 
or Matter and Life, London, 1874, pp. 182, 184 and 

185. 

Note to p. 17. 

Since the appearance of this brochure I have been 
taken to task in certain quarters for quoting Dr Lionel 
S. Beale as a commanding authority upon questions 
of vitalism and the chemistry of protoplasm, and it 
has even been intimated by some, that not only are his 
deductions wrong, but that his alleged discovery of 
the "bioplast" is purely gratuitous. I therefore feel 

71 



that I should acquaint the readers of this discussion 
with Beale's place in biological discovery and with 
other similar discoveries that have been made, cor- 
roborative of Beale's facts, by authorities of undis- 
puted position. 

I quote first from the article "Anatomy" in the 
"Encyclopaedia Britannica (p. 740). "The simplest 
form of organic matter capable of exhibiting the phe- 
nomena of life is called Cyto-blastema or Protoplasm. 
It possesses a viscous or jelly-like consistency. Under 
the highest powers of the microscope it seems to be 
homogeneous, or dimly granulated, like a sheet of 
ground glass. Not only can it assimilate nutriment 
and increase in size, but it possesses the power of spon- 
taneous movement and contractility. * * * From 
the recent researches of Hackel, it would appear that 
protoplasm is capable of forming, without the super- 
addition of any other structure, independent organ- 
isms, which stand at the lowest grade of organization, 
and from their extreme simplicity are named by him 
Moneron * * * Hackel has referred these simple 
organisms to a sub-kingdom of Protiste, which he 
considers to lie on the confines of both the animal and 
vegetable kingdoms." 

Here it is evident the writer uses the term "Proto- 
plasm," as Beale uses the term "Bioplasm." Beale in- 
sists that as the term Protoplasm had been used in so 
many and such confusing ways, referring as well to 
the "marked mass of living matter," as to the outer 
wall and formed substance, he would prefer to use 
Bioplasm as referring only and exclusively to the liv- 

72 



ing matter itself, out of which all other organic struc- 
tures develop. 

Hackel himself employs a special term to apply to 
the germinal points which Beale called Bioplasts. 
Quoting further from the Britannica article on "An- 
atomy" : "To a mass of Protoplasm, whether it forms, 
as in one of these Protistse, an independent organism, 
or is merely a portion of the body of the higher or- 
ganisms, he has given the general name Cytode. 
Sometimes a Cytode is a naked clump of soft proto- 
plasm, without a trace of differentiation either on its 
surface or in its substance, as in the more freely mov- 
ing Moners; [evidently Hackel here refers to what 
Beale called Bioplasts] ; at others, the peripheral part 
of the Cytode hardens and differentiates into a more 
or less perfect envelope, as in the genera Protomonos." 
[Here Hackel seems to refer to what Beale distin- 
guishes as Protoplasm.] "As far back as 1861 Lionel 
Beale had described under the name germinal matter 
{Bioplasm) minute living particles of vegetable pro- 
toplasm, and in 1863 he demonstrated the presence of 
extremely minute particles of living matter in the 
blood." 

It is therefore very clear that the discovery of a 
distinct living substance, absolutely contradistin- 
guished from common matter, either in molecular struc- 
ture or chemical consistency, is no chimera of a scien- 
tific dreamer, but a stern and serious scientific fact. 
Whether this discovery will force us to reach the same 
conclusion that Dr. Beale did is problematical — but 
that we are forced to accept Beale's discovery as a 
scientific reality is beyond dispute. 

73 



In further corroboration of Beale's discovery, I 
quote from Hackel ("Evolution of Man," Vol. II, 45). 

"The Monera are the simplest permanent cytodes. 
Their entire body consists merely of soft, structureless 
plasson. However thoroughly we examine them with 
the help of the most delicate chemical reagents and the 
strongest optical instruments, we yet find that all parts 
are completely homogeneous ["structureless," Beale]. 
These Monera are therefore in the strictest sense of 
the word "organisms without organs," or even in a 
strictly philosophical sense they might not even be 
called "organisms," since they possess no organs 
["structureless"], since they are not composed of vari- 
ous particles [not susceptible of chemical analysis, 
Beale]. 

"They can be called organisms in so far as they 
are capable of exercising the organic phenomena of 
life, of nutrition, reproduction, sensation, movement. 
If we tried to construct a priori, the simplest conceiv- 
able organism, we should always be compelled to fall 
back upon such Monera." 

Huxley, himself, although not going into such de- 
tails as Beale or Hackel, seems to have arrived at the 
same conclusions concerning the unit of living matter. 
He says in his article "Biology" in the Britannica, Vol. 
Ill, p. 590 : "For the whole of the living world, then, 
it results that the morphological unit [ Beale' s "bio- 
plast"] — the primary, fundamental form of life — is 
merely an individual mass of protoplasm, in which no 
further structure is discernible; that independent liv- 
ing forms may present but little advance on this struc- 

74 



ture, and that all higher forms of life are aggregates 
of such morphological units or cells, variously modi- 
fied." Elsewhere in this article he shows how neither 
the cell, the sac, nor the primordial utricle or the central 
fluid are essentials of the morphological unit and in- 
sists that "either the term 'cell' must acquire a merely 
technical significance as the equivalent of the morpho- 
logical unit, or some new term must be invented to 
describe the latter." This new term Beale invented in 
his definitive term "bioplasm." 

Still more emphatically Huxley insists : "The 
properties of living matter distinguish it absolutely 
from all other kinds of things, and the present state of 
knowledge furnishes us with no link between the living 
and the not-living/' 
Note to p. 1 8. 

"The difference between germinal or living matter, 
or bioplasm and the pabulum which nourishes it is, I 
believe, absolute. The pabulum does not shade by 
imperceptible gradations into living matter, and this 
latter into the formed material, but the passage from 
one state into the other is sudden and abrupt, although 
there may be much living matter mixed up with a little 
lifeless matter, or vice versa. The ultimate particles 
of matter pass from lifeless into the living state and 
from the latter into the dead state suddenly. Matter 
cannot be said to be half dead and half alive. It is 
either dead or living, animate or inanimate; and 
formed matter has ceased to live." (Protoplasm, p. 

185.) 

75 



First Note to p. 19. 

Lest I should be misconstrued by this passage, and 
the reader might suppose that I am referring to vi- 
tality as a specialized and separate force in Nature, I 
append this explanatory note. I have said in my 
definition of the soul, that the universal energy mani- 
fests itself in organic forms in a special way recognized 
as vital force. But life, or the vital force, is not an 
entity or something that exists in nature outside of the 
molecular and organic forms through which it is mani- 
fested. Huxley makes this very clear in the following 
quotation from his article "Biology," in the Britannica, 
Vol. III., p. 5S9. "It must not be supposed that the 
differences between living and not living matter are 
such as to justify the assumption that the forces at 
work in the one are different from those which are 
to be met with in the other. * * * It may be con- 
venient to use the term Vitality' and Vital force' to 
denote the causes of certain groups of natural opera- 
tions, as we employ the names of 'electricity' and 'elec- 
trical force' to denote others ; but it ceases to be proper 
to do so if such a name implies the absurd assumption 
that electricity and vitality are entities playing the part 
of efficient causes of electrical and vital phenomna. A 
mass of living protoplasm is simply a molecular ma- 
chine of great complexity, the total results of the work- 
ing of which, or its vital phenomena, depend on the 
one hand upon its construction, and upon the other, 
upon the energy supplied to it." It is with this 
"Energy" we have to do when we are scientifically des- 
canting upon the soul. 

76 



Second Note to p. 19. 

"Indeed we have found in the great cell-nucleus 
(megamicleus) of the infusoria a central organ of psy- 
chic activity, which plays much the same part in their 
unicellular organism as the brain does in the psychic 
life of higher animals. * * * However that very 
difficult question may be settled, it does not alter the 
fact that these unicellular protozoa give proof of the 
possession of a highly developed "cell-soul/' which is 
of great interest for a correct decision as to the psyche 
of our earliest unicellular ancestors." Haeckel, "Rid- 
dle of the Universe/' p. 154. 
Note to p. 20. 

Darwin's hypothesis of Pangenesis seems to give a 
very conclusive physical basis of the nature of the soul 
or the psychic force which I am seeking to demon- 
strate. He describes his theory as follows in "Plants 
and Animals Under Domestication," Vol. II, p. 369 ff. 
"It is universally admitted that the cells or units of 
the body increase by self-division or proliferation, re- 
taining the same nature, and that they ultimately be- 
come converted into the various tissues and substances 
of the body. But besides this means of increase I as- 
sume that the units throw off minute granules which 
are dispersed throughout the whole system ; that these 
when supplied with proper nutriment, multiply by self- 
division, and are ultimately developed into units like 
those from which they were originally derived. 

"These granules may be called gemmules. They 
are collected from all parts of the system to constitute 
the sexual elements, and their development in the next 

77 



generation forms a new being. * * * Lastly, I as- 
sume that the gemmules in their dormant state, have a 
mutual affinity for each other, leading to their aggre- 
gation into buds or into sexual elements. Hence, it is 
not the reproductive organs or buds which generate 
new organisms, but the units of which each individual 
is composed. 

"These units in the primordial living substance, out 
of which the sexual and formative cells are constituted 
— exist in countless millions throughout the system." 

In the light of this theory of Darwin's we can un- 
derstand what Beale referred to when he said "there is 
not one portion of a living growing tissue 1 / 500 of an 
inch in extent in which living matter cannot be demon- 
strated/' and again "in every part of the body, sep- 
arated from one another by a distance a little more 
. than the 1 / 100 o P art of an inch, are little masses of 
living matter." 

It is a fact worthy of comment that when Darwin's 
work ("Animals and Plants Under Domestication") 
above quoted was in its first edition — Dr. Beale's "How 
to Use the Microscope" — from which the above ex- 
tracts are taken — was already in its fourth edition 
(1868). 
Note to p. 22. 

"Some of the phenomena exhibited by bodies called 
inorganic, such as animals of many kinds, possess prop- 
erties that are very like those supposed to belong solely 
to living things. * * * Such phenomena have led 
some of the most thoughtful and best informed nat- 
uralists to query whether the evidence we have does 

78 



not lend much support to the theory that matter itself 
283. 'These phenomena of life, though they may not 
as yet be physically and chemically explained, are cer- 
tainly not to be referred to the working of any special 
Vital force' peculiar to organisms. * * * We have 
is alive!" Dolbear," Matter, Ether and Motion," p. 
to do here with the same forces and the same sub- 
stances that are met with elsewhere in Nature." Lang, 
"Text-Book of Comparative Anatomy," p. 2. 
Note to p. 23. 

The persistency of the formative elements (Hux- 
ley's "Morphological Units," Darwin's "Gemmules" 
and Dr. Beale's "Bioplasts") is a point upon which 
we must slightly elaborate. Darwin points out how 
the vital or formative elements are so strong that often 
in grafting, the limb or organ will continue in its 
original form, although transplanted on an incongru- 
ous organism. He says : — "That the same cells or units 
may live for a long period and continue multiplying 
without being modified by their union with free gem- 
mules of any kind, is probable from such cases as those 
of a spur of a cock, which grew to an enormous size, 
when grafted into the ear of an ox." ("Animals and 
Plants Under Domestication," p. 377.) 

This fact indicates that the bioplasts or primary 
vital elements exercise a persistency or continuity of 
their own, even when opposed by disintegrating or 
permutating influences. 

On the contrary, this same curious characteristic 
of the living units is evidenced in their conserving or 
integrating power — as shown in cases of the long life 

79 



of seeds and grains. It is said that they have been 
found buried for thousands of years with mummies 
and when subjected to heat and moisture have evi- 
denced signs of life. 

This shows that, whatever be the status of the 
formed or visible elements that constitute an organic 
body, it does not seem to interfere with the persistency 
of life in the vital elements or the living units that are 
the basis of growth in the living organism. 

This fact has been somewhat elaborated in a work 
by the late Dr. Gibier, which seems to me to bear 
strongly on this point, and indicates that the living 
units or bioplasts can persist in life after the death of 
the visible body without contact with other living mat- 
ter. 

In his work "Psychism" (p. 241) he claims that 
in 1887, during the yellow fever scourge in Havana, 
he drew some liquid through the walls of the bladder 
of a corpse (dead for two hours) into a tube of glass 
(Pasteur's pipette). With the broken and irregular 
end of the tube, which had been previously passed 
through the flame of an alcohol lamp, he lightly 
scraped the internal wall of the viscus and drew by 
aspiration a small quantity of the liquid contents. The 
tube was immediately sealed and an hour and a half 
after its contents were placed in liquefied and neutral 
"gelose," which was placed in watch crystals and pro- 
tected in china vessels. Dr. Gibier claims that after a 
few days, in the transparent medium of agar-agar, a 
number of whitish, irregularly shaped pellicles ap- 
peared, which were augmented day by day. In short, 

80 



he claims that this experiment demonstrates the fact 
that the original living units (Beale's "bioplasts") will 
propagate themselves without contact with other living 
matter. 

If this experiment could be demonstrated beyond 
a doubt, it would seem to prove Darwin's hypothesis 
of "gemmules" — which he says break off from the cells 
of the body and are sexually united because of certain 
affinities among them. 

Science is thus closely approaching the demonstra- 
tion of the independent existence of the bioplasts or 
vital units, and the fact that life once manifested in 
organic form is susceptible of persistent development, 
if not incapable of destruction. 

These conclusions seem to be further reinforced by 
the recent experiments of Dr. Loeb and Prof. 
Matthews of the Chicago University, in the physical 
qualities of the elements of life. Prof. Matthews says 
in the Century Magazine of March, 1902, p. 792 : 
"The physical explanation of the phenomena of life, 
will, if it prove true, bring us a step nearer the under- 
standing of other life-phenomena, the artificial syn- 
thesis of living matter, and the prolongation of life. 
There is apparently no inherent reason why a man 
should die, except our ignorance of the conditions gov- 
erning the reaction going on in his protoplasm." 
Note to p. 25. 

Perhaps it will yet be proved (following the lines 
of research pursued by Profs. Loeb and Matthews) 
that the immortality of the individual to be attained is 
that of the physical body itself in some highly modified 

81 



and far more complex form of existence. The entire 
race may slowly evolve to this exalted condition 
through millions of years or far-reaching aeons. 
Meanwhile individual and extraordinary cases of per- 
sistency of life will be evidenced all down the cen- 
turies. Gradually so much of the race will persist and 
be permanently preserved as is capable of learning and 
applying the newly discovered principles of the Science 
of Life, while those who are ignofant or incapable of 
utilizing the knowledge that future discoveries may 
afford them, will perish forever and permit the more 
fortunate and aggressive to survive and develop the 
race. 
Note to p. 27. 

"Even in the smallest organisms, which exhibit the 
simplest characters, as well as in every structure of the 
most highly complex beings, we can demonstrate two 
kinds of matter, differing in very important particulars 
from one another; or, perhaps it would be more cor- 
rect to say, matter in tivo different states manifesting 
different properties, and exhibiting differences in ap- 
pearance, chemical composition, etc., and physical 
characters." {Protoplasm, or Matter and Life, Dr. 
Lionel S. Beale, London, 1872, page 182.) 

Indeed, the discoveries of all life, the physical 
formation of life activities, and so-called biochemis- 
try, are treading so fast upon each others' heels 
that almost every day some startling revelation is 
made. Once it was claimed, and apparently proved 
by Pasteur, that fermentation was the result of life. 
Now the exact opposite seems to be proved. Carl 

82 



Snyder, in Harper's Magazine (November, 1902), as- 
serts that "the sum of activities we collectively call 
life is a series of fermentations." 

But what these fermentations (enzymes, zy- 
moses or diasteses) are science as yet cannot say. 
Mr. Snyder tells us that some German chemists 
have succeeded in imitating some of the ferment 
actions by means of solution of very finely divided 
metals, such as platinum or gold. 

This reminds us of a recent report of the dis- 
covery of an East Indian scientist, who seems to 
have demonstrated the sensitiveness of metals by 
tracing their feelings on a carbon paper the same as 
the feelings or sensations of the nerves in living or- 
ganisms are traced. By this process he claims to 
have proved literally that all matter is alive. An- 
other recent discovery of what is called the reversi- 
bility of ferment action has led to some truly start- 
ling conclusions. It is found that the ferment which 
splits up starch into sugar and water will, if its ac- 
tion is continued beyond a certain point, join their 
components together again to form starch. This 
fact leads Mr. Snyder to the following conclusion, 
which is strongly corroborative of what I have just 
intimated : 

"It seems to be clear that the condition of growth, whether 
of a grain of wheat or the germ of a man, is the production, 
or appearance, of distinct enzymes — ferments — at each stage. 
Cessation of growth must mean the disappearance or lapse in 
activity of these special enzymes. What we call growing old 
seems merely a series of destructive fermentations. It is 
probable that these are present from the beginning — that 

83 



throughout all life there is a struggle, so to speak, between the 
two; that in some sense, as Professor Loeb once remarked, 
death is a physical agent, the material antithesis of life. 

"If the action of the malt enzymes upon starch is reversible, 
so is that of the ferments which convert the active tissue, the 
living protoplasm, into the relatively dead, fatty, or connective, 
or cartilage, or bone tissue — the characteristic, as the great 
Russian biologist, Metchnikoff, has shown, of advancing years. 
As the discovery of the constructive ferments gave at last 
a clue to a complete account of the whole life process, so to 
those who have closely and reflectively followed the develop- 
ment of biochemistry the discovery of reversibility in fermen- 
tation may in time disclose the reversibility of the life pro- 
cess : in more concrete phrase, the arrest of death, the pre- 
vention of old age, the preservation of youth." 



84 



APPENDIX II. 



PHOTOGRAPHING THE SOUL. 

I believe the time is not far distant when the 
image of the human soul will be reproduced in the 
photographic camera. 

I rest this statement upon what I believe to be 
strictly scientific ground, which in the near future 
will become the common property of mankind. 

We have been wont to conceive of the mind and 
the soul as immaterial quantities, some w r ay mys- 
teriously associated with the human organism, yet 
being absolutely distinct in essential nature from 
the organism itself. 

We have refused to regard mind as substance, 
and have conceived it as purely an immaterial force ; 
but in so doing have necessarily confused our phil- 
osophy and science. 

That sort of a mind has never been discovered 
in the universe; it doubtless never can be. 

Mind, so far as it may be an energy of motion, 
may be regarded as immaterial; the same as all mo- 
tion in the universe is immaterial. 

But while the force know r n as motion in itself is 
immaterial we know that that force is never exer- 
cised except upon material substances. 



Therefore, while the ultimate, intelligent energy 
known as mind may be an immaterial quantity in 
nature, the mind that operates in nature, and that 
has become interwoven in the organism of the hu- 
man being, is itself inherent in the organism and es- 
sentially associated with its material substance. 

Now, what we understand as the soul is simply 
the invisible material organism which is delicately 
and instantaneously responsive to the operations of 
the mind; and is not a separate person within the 
human body, distinguishable from the organism it- 
self, and sometime to be separated from all material 
relationship, as heretofore believed. 

Strict science is slowly leading us into an ap- 
preciation of this fact, and revealing the possibility 
of the actual discovery of the soul, and its visible 
representation through mechanical instruments. I 
am well aware that this may appear to be a very 
startling and to some perhaps a ludicrous statement, 
if they are not acquainted with the facts. But I will 
now present a few r scientific certainties, which are 
the bases upon which I rest my prophecies. 

The blood itself, because of its phosphorescent 
constituents, is a luminous body. Each distinct 
cell is constantly emitting a certain quantity of light. 

The actual organism of the body, which we per- 
ceive with the eye, is not the final analysis to which 
it may be reduced. The denser portions of the ex- 
terior body are not as delicately susceptible to the 
operations of the mind as are the more invisible and 
less understood portions of the organism. 

86 



We know, for instance, that the mind operates 
more delicately and instinctively upon the nervous 
system than it does upon the muscular and fibrous 
portions of the body, and for that reason there is an 
organized sensorium or nervous telegraphic medium 
which nature has constructed for the purpose of 
delicately transmitting through the body the im- 
pressions of the mental forci. 

Now, again, we learn that certain parts of this 
nervous system are far more delicately responsive 
to the mental operations than other portions of it. 
Also, we learn that in some organisms, the sensitive 
response of the nervous system is far more delicate 
and instantaneous than it is in others ; as, for in- 
stance, the nervous system of women responds, as 
a rule, more to the mental impressions than that of 
men. 

There are psychological instruments which 
measure the actual time it requires for the passage 
of the mental operation through the nervous system 
into the exterior of the body; and it has been proved 
in many cases that certain persons are, through this 
nervous system, far more responsive than others. 

Now, I ask, why is one sensorium more imme- 
diately responsive to the mental operation than the 
other? The answer is, of course, that the more re- 
fined, subtle or sublimated the substance which con- 
stitutes the nervous organism, the more delicately 
and instantaneously it will respond to the mental 
energy which impresses it. As, for instance, we 
know that water and the humid substance of the 

87 



atmosphere are identical ; and yet, because of the 
dense combination of the substances which consti- 
tute water, it is far less responsive to an external im- 
pression than is the atmospheric vapor. This is 
because vapor is less dense than water, and there- 
fore its individual particles can be more indepen- 
dently affected by any force, internal or external, 
which may play upon it, than can the denser parti- 
cles of the water. 

Just so the more refined and sublimated the sub- 
stance that constitutes the different nervous sys- 
tems of animals and human beings, the more deli- 
cately will it respond to the mental impressions. 

Now, we have not yet reached the last possible 
scientific analysis of the physical or nervous organ- 
ism of man. We have reached an analysis which 
teaches us that the ultimate cells of the body are not 
only inconceivably small, but that they consist of 
such rarefied substance, that it is more sensitive to 
internal impressions than anything else we know in na- 
ture. 

This curious fact is demonstrated in the experi- 
ence of the human eye when it receives the impres- 
sion of an ultra-violet ray of light. At such a time 
some nine hundred trillions of impressions are im- 
pinged upon the eye in a single second. The marvel 
is that the eye is so delicately constructed that its 
millions of cells respond instantly to the myriad 
impressions that play upon it. The eyelid that 
covers the eye, although consisting of the same ele- 
mentary chemical substances as the eye, is more 

88 



grossly constructed, not having attained so highly 
sublimated a state. 

Also we have learned that the delicate and sen- 
sitive substance, which is sometimes called proto- 
plasm, is in its nature luminous. Science tells us 
that "the emission of light is one of the properties 
of protoplasm. Phosphorus enters largely into the 

composition of the human body As 

oxygen is being constantly conveyed to those phos- 
phorated tissues, light will certainly be generated." 
Thus says M. de Manaceine in his work on "The 
Psychology of Sleep/' which he closes with this 
remarkable suggestion : 

"It would be interesting to know if a micro- 
photograph of the circulation could be taken after 
long exposure in darkness with a very sensitive 
plate." This latter suggestion, founded upon the 
more conservative facts of science, is the ground 
upon which I rest my prophecy that sometime the 
soul of man may be reproduced on the sensitive 
plate of some micro-photographic instrument; for, 
as I have shown mind and matter, in the last an- 
alysis, are not separable, but are inherently and es- 
sentially co-incident in all the operations of nature. 

I have also shown that the impressions of the 
mental process are sensitively received by the deli- 
cate organism of the nervous system. This delicate 
organism, more refined in some human beings than 
in others, is itself the garment or the tenement of 
that mental force which heretofore, vaguely, we 
have denominated the soul. 

89 



I understand the soul to be this invisible reflec- 
tion of the mental process upon the delicate nervous 
organism. 

So long as individual mind exists, it must exist 
in association with some material organism, how- 
ever sublimated the substance may be of which that 
organism consists. Just as wherever mind exists 
in nature, it exists inseparable from material sub- 
stance in all gradations, from the most dense to the 
most delicate and rarefied. 

Now, I have suggested that this subtile sub- 
stance, which constitutes the nervous system of the 
body, and receives the impressions of the mind, is 
a phosphorescent or luminous substance. Such a 
substance can be made to impress its image upon the 
sensitive plate of a micro-camera. 

If, therefore, the time shall come when by long 
exposure to such a sensitive plate the actual circula- 
tion of the blood may be photographed, then it is like- 
wise true that the image of the soul itself, which is noth- 
ing more than the reflection of mental impressions upon 
the invisible bioplasms of the nervous system, may like- 
wise be photographed. 

From this we draw the conclusion that, inso- 
much as every mental image physically impresses 
itself upon the cellular tissues of the nervous sys- 
tem, therefore those images or mental thoughts are 
themselves capable of reproduction in photographic 
reflection. 

Hence, not only does science clearly prophesy 
that sometime the contour of the soul itself, re- 

90 



fleeted in the cellular organism of the body, may be 
imaged upon the sensitive plate and be reproduced 
visually to the human eye, but likewise those sup- 
posed spiritual operations — the thoughts of the hu- 
man mind — may become capable of reproduction, 
till the very images of one's mind shall no longer be 
the secret property and possession of the individual 
thinker, but may become the permanent heritage of 
all the human race. 

If the suggestion of this paper could ever be 
proved a scientific fact it might produce some mar- 
velous, not to say startling, results. 

If the neuro-cerebral system is the sensitive 
plate upon which all the impressions, activities, 
thoughts, and dispositions of the individual are 
caught, then if this could be actually reproduced in 
photographic form, we might have a revelation of 
character far beyond what the most intimate ac- 
quaintance would reveal. 

For the neuro-cerebral system registers not 
only the conscious, but the unconscious conditions 
or impressions as well. 

Speaking of our ability to recall dream and 
dream images, M. Manaceine says : "In fairly deep 
sleep conscious personality is abolished, and the 
images of dreams pass before us strange and un- 
known, without relation to us. We can scarcely 
recall dreams of this kind, and if we sometimes re- 
member them, it is later on, some time in the course 
of the day. 

"Such reminiscences of dreams occur in accord- 
91 



ance with the psycho-physiological law, by which 
we sometimes hear, afterward, the sounds of human 
speech which has ceased; the melody which no 
longer vibrates; the clock which struck some sec- 
onds since; they had passed unperceived t- ough not 
unregistered, because then consciousness was other- 
wise occupied, 

"The neuro-cerebral system retains the traces of the 
impressions which strike it, and in the absence of other 
exterior impressions, these may revive under the sole 
influences of that voluntary impression which is, as it 
zvere, given to consciousness. In such cases conscious- 
ness may be compared to a master who returns to his 
property after temporary absence ;. he carefully ex- 
amines all the changes, the additions, the transposi- 
tions which have occurred during his absence, and 
notes what he finds." * 

But if it be true that every impression, uncon- 
scious as well as conscious, is registered in the 
neuro-cerebral system, and by a possible long ex- 
posure a micro-photograph could be taken of such 
impressions, then, of course, the camera wouid do 
the work that our author says consciousness does 
when returning to its house, and would reveal the 
secret thoughts, feelings, purposes, biases, passions 
and proclivities of each person. 

I am well aware that such possibility suggests 
a new and curious field for scientific investigation, 
and at the present stage of research will be scouted 



* The italics are mine. (H. F.) 
92 



by the conservative; but at the same time, those 
who have traced the progress of science in the last 
quarter of a century, and more especially the psy-* 
chological research of the last ten years, will not in 
any way be startled by the possibilities I am indi- 
cating, or inclined to cast them aside as ridiculous. 

I believe that at this point physical science and 
spiritual philosophy meet to join hands ; that this is 
the common ground of union for all conflicting 
classes of investigation ; and that here science and 
religion, realism and idealism, poetry and practice, 
become one and the same; and upon this foundation 
a wholly new superstructure of religious science may 
be reared for the future generations of the race. 



93 



1B>JL '05 



\\ THE SCIENTIFIC 

DEMONSTRATION 



OF THE 



Soul's Existence and Imirtalitg. 



A New Argument Based Upon Recent Scientific 
Discoveries. 



By 
HENRY FRANK. 



New York: 

THE ALLIANCE PUBLISHING CO., 

Windsor Arcade, 

569 Fifth Avenue, 

1903- 



"I am very glad to learn that other men have teen 
thinking along the same lines that I have concern- 
ing the matter of immortality. I have read your 
book, THE EXISTENCE AND IMMORTALITY 
OF THE SOUL/ with very great interest. I think 
that you have developed the subject on its physical 
side in a very striking manner." 
—Dr. S. D. McConnell, author of "The Evolution 
of Immortality." 

"In THE EXISTENCE AND IMMORTAL- 
ITY OF THE SOUL/ the author, Henry Frank, 
head of the Independent Church movement in New 
York City, argues on physiological lines that the 
soul is not resident in the body as a foreign sub- 
stance, but is the register of the universal spiritual 
energy in the human organization, penetrating 
every minute atom. This impalpable presence be- 
comes visible, he says, through the microscopical 
investigation of the blood. In the second part of 
the work, the author presents the psychological 
basis of the argument, giving the data of spiritual- 
ism, hypnotism, telepathy, clairvoyance, and other 
subjects relating to the 'borderland' life." 

—"The Literary Digest," N. Y. City. 

"You will thank me for calling your attention to 
Mr. Frank's concise elaboration of this subject in 
his book on THE SOUL'S EXISTENCE AND 
IMMORTALITY,' from which I have just made a 
few quotations. He not only shows the existence 
of the soul's bioplastic body, but he also demon- 
strates, relying on Beale's discoveries, that the bio- 
plastic body of the soul is structureless and com- 
posed of separable substances, and, as its vitalizing 
energy has its source within itself, will therefore 
surely survive the physical body." 
— From Dr. Harry Marschner's "From Death to 

Life." 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: August 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16068 
(724)779-2111 



67 



